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Fig 9.2 A Maxim of Conversational Politeness
SUPPORT AND RATIFY
PROFFERED POSITIVE
AND AfEGATIVE
CONVERSATIONAL
SELVES
a) Maximise the expression
of solidarity between selves
b) Minimise the expression
of individuation of selves
a) Maximise the expression
of individuation of selves
b) Minimise the expression
of solidarity between selves
I think that future politeness research might gain some purchase by
employing the facework as alignment approach and be in a position to bring the
sociological concept of the self more in line with linguistic practice.
I have concentrated specifically on two cultures here - the English and
the Germans. Alongside further exploration of these two particular speech
communities, I believe the facework as alignment approach has relevance for
cross-cultural studies of facework in general. A dichotomy revealed in the initial
review of face and facework in Chapter 1 was that between Eastern and
Western conceptual i sati on s of face. Indeed, the differences between Eastern
and Western conceptual isations of the self formed one of the foundational
objections to Brown and Levinson's conceptualisation of face, particular the
negative aspect which was framed as overly individualistic. I believe that my
appropriation of the positive and in particular negative aspects of face here
might help resolve this apparent East-West contradiction. The self as
conversational construal, manifest as normative conversational behaviour, is
not a fixed one but a conversationally contingent one. Thus, work in Asian
Cultures may begin by examining actual ongoing conversation (very few do) to
see a) what salient conversational selves are routinely mobilised, and b) how
selves are mobilised along a solidarity-autonomy dimension in the playing out of
equilibric conversational interaction (i. e., how do conversationalists in Asian
cultures safely negatively align themselves and claim autonomous stances? ).
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