Download (23MB) - University of Salford Institutional Repository

At the time, this proposal seemed essentially clear cut in terms of:
a) what the'research problem'was; and b) how I would set about
addressing this problem. However it soon became clear, upon gathering
and consulting the literature on face and facework, and looking at the
nature of the conversational data coming in, that this would not to be such
a clear cut systematic investigation. I quickly came to realise that the
conceptual, methodological and analytic tools for executing such a study
were far from the clinical and incisive ones I expected them to be. As a
result, the study took on a double mandate: First, the original task of
addressing German-English differences; and second the task of finding a
framework and set of concepts and analytical tools suitable for the
analysis of facework in naturally occurring conversation from two different
cultures.
This thesis might best be described as equally exploratory and
empirical in nature. This dual mandate is subsequently reflected in the
organisation of the study in terms of the individual chapters, nature of the
analysis, and set of propositions constituting the overall thesis.
Organisation of Chapters
In Chapter 11 shall begin by considering key foundational texts, to
which the majority of facework studies can be conceptually traced,
namely, the work of Goffman (1967) and Brown and Levinson (1987). 1 will
suggest that the fundamental premises set out in these two bodies of work
are essential, not only to understanding the concept of face and facework
practices in discourse per se, but particularly, to cross-cultural comparative
analysis between cultures. Following this I shall point to recent conceptual
debates addressing the concept of face as a universal, drawing
particularly on work conducted by scholars focussing on non-Western
conceptualisations, largely in response to Brown and Levinson. In
essence, I shall show how, in order to fully understand face and facework
as a universal phenomenon, the concept of the self - particular that
advanced in Western readings of face and facework - requires some
5