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collaborative alignment practices throughout this chapter, but the analytical
focus shall be on the identification and demonstration of what are in effect the
symbolic resources with which participants in each culture play out sociability. In
terms of the study as a whole, the findings presented in this chapter will be
essential to the analysis of sociable conversation presented in the following and
final analytical chapter.
7.1 Conversational Claims and the 'Self'
Before I go on to demonstrate how the concept of the self may be drawn
upon to systematically address the sociological bases for cultural differences in
sociable conversation, I need briefly to clarify exactly what is meant by the
concept as it will be employed here. There are two main conceptual i sations of
the self informing this study, largely due to their direct relationship to the
concept of face. The first is that developed in the writings of Goffman (1967;
1969; 1971; 1974; 1981), often referred to as a'symbolic internationalists'
reading of the self (see Malone 1997). The second is that posited as a basis for
cultural variation in the conceptualisation of face and subsequent facework
practices (see e. g. Morisaki and Gudykunst 1994; Scollon and Scollon 1995),
referred to earlier as a self-construal conceptual isation (see Chapter 1). These
two readings of the self are not only intrinsically connected to the concept of
face, but equally fundamental to any cross-cultural approach to the study of
facework. Further, as I shall illustrate more clearly in the following chapter,
these two ptima facie unrelated conceptual isations can be seen to compliment
each other in the analysis of facework across two different cultures.
I shall develop the notion of the self-construal as one relevant to the
analysis of ongoing conversational facework at the beginning of the following
chapter (Chapter 8). Now however, I want to concentrate on the concept
specifically developed by Erving Goffman.
The concept of the self was central to Goffman's writings. It was a
concept however which consisted of a range of different presentational
properties and interactional facets. The self could be conceived of as a 192