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the self and its relationship to ongoing conversational style remain
essentially under explored. Finally, I shall consider the methodological,
analytical and procedural characteristics of extant comparative research
into English - German differences in communicative style, identifying the
benefits and limitations of each and suggesting areas, which require
further investigation and elaboration. Here I shall also point to the nature
of the data on which this study is based, and sites from which it is drawn.
Chapter 3 will be perhaps the most fundamental chapter of the
whole study. This is largely due to the theoretical and analytical
propositions developed and advanced. I shall begin by outlining the main
approaches to the analysis of facework in discourse, these being largely
applications or developments of Goffman's (1967) and Brown and
Levinson's (1987) frameworks. Again, although I shall identify the
analytical purchase provided by extant approaches to facework in
discourse, I shall argue that, the nature of discourse itself - particular
naturally occurring ongoing discourse - remains recalcitrant to systematic
and valid analysis in terms of its facework features, due to such things as
multi-functionality of utterances, the import of contextual factors, and
inherent problems with identifying a particular unit of analysis for the
analysis of facework. In conclusion I shall suggest that facework -
particular the notions of positive and negative face (Brown and Levinson
1987) and equilibrium (Goffman 1967) - might best be treated as
'heuristics' in the analysis of facework, that is, as sensitising devices rather
than indexing particular linguistic form of, for example, particular
utterances. Following this - and changing footing somewhat -I shall
consider the contingencies and dynamics of the particular type of
discourse on which this particular study is based, that is, sociable
interaction (Blum-Kulka 1997; Eggins and Slade 1997; Riesman and Watson
1964; Schiffrin 1984; Simmel 1949 [1911]; Tannen 1984; Watson 1958;
Watson and Potter 1962). Here I shall draw on a body of literature that
points to particular fundamental underlying dynamics, which guide
conversational behaviour during episodes of sociable conversation.
Drawing on these observations - and in the light of the particular empirical
basis for this study -I shall move on to suggest how the sociological
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