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1.3 Culture, Facework, Equilibrium
What the preceding discussion has demonstrated is that face and
facework, when considered in a cultural context, are subject to considerable
variation in the way face is perceived and facework carried out. One common
denominator to the sets of practices enjoyed in the various cultures is that,
scholars have posited them as being examples of culturally variable
manifestations of essentially equilibric behaviour, that is, behaviour which
indexes face concerns.
Thus, universally, within the boundaries of equilibrium lie a range of
cultural preferences for doing face to face talk. These range from an avoidance
of conflict at the expense of the person based self, where communal concerns
subsume the idea of the individualistic self, to an active pursuit of conflict in
which the self is mobilised as an expressive and autonomous entity. However,
rather than being mutually exclusive, these two sets of dynamics - albeit
conceptualised using various terminology - seem to be two sides of the same
interactional coin, and index the orientation to face concerns in interaction.
What I shall term the universal poles of equilibric facework are represented in
figure 1.8.
Fig. 1.8 The Universal Poles of Equilibric Facework
Indirectness of
Expression
Avoidance of Conflict
Focus on Other
Joint Harmony
Amplification of
Individuation
Directness of
Expression
Pursuit of Conflict
Focus on Self
Joint Agonism
Diminution of
Individuation
I will develop this rather crude conceptualisation of facework across
cultures below (see Chapter 3).
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