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1.2 Face and Facework across Cultures
In considering their respective paradigms on a universal footing, both
Goffman and Brown and Levinson then recognised two things: First, face is a
universal concern - part of human nature 6; and second, facework will differ
culturally / societally according to what verbal action can be regarded as 'ritually
equilibric! or'polite'. What I want to do now is to discuss the validity of face as
concept suitable for cross-cultural analysis, and to highlight contrasting
communicative style from several cultures to illustrate how ritual equilibrium or
politeness may be variously achieved'
The preceding discussion has focused on what might be termed Western
approaches to face and facework, that is, conceptual and theoretical
propositions forged in an Anglo-US academic milieu. However, over the last
couple of decades or so a new body of work has emerged which has taken its
impetus from the universal claims set out in Brown and Levinson's
conceptual i sati ons. This second body of work might be generally termed non-
western, with the majority of scholars citing evidence from their studies of the
concept of face in Asian cultures.
The majority of these studies recognise the general validity of Goffman's
general conceptual i sation of face as public image of self, contingent on a
person's behaviour vis-6-vis him- / her- self, co-present others, and prevailing
'occasioned' ground rules3. Brown and Levinson's treatment of face is however,
a different issue. The volume of work stemming from Brown and Levinson
original publication has been huge9. Although many of these works have lent
support to Brown and Levinson's thesis, others have identified conceptual,
analytical, and methodological concerns with the politeness theory reading of
face and facework. This has led to varying degrees of support for the validity
and reliability of Brown and Levinson's positive - negative paradigm for
understanding facework practiceslo.
As I noted above, a central proposition in Brown and Levinson's thesis
was the universal applicability of their'model person'. However, many non-
Western researchers have questioned the validity of such a claim to
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