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CHAPTER
3
FACEWORK AS ALIGNMENT
... a proper model of face dynamics must incofporate the idea that people are
interacting for the purposes of companionship and affiliation as well as selfdefinition
... interaction is typically regulated by vafying degrees of an affiliation
motive and a desire for self-definition. (Earley 1997,62)
3.0 Introduction
In the preceding pages I have introduced the notions of face and facework,
and gone on to consider cultural variations in both the conceptualisations of the
face and the linguistic realisation of facework (Chapter 1). 1 have also more
specifically outlined how German and English communicative style displays marked
differences along a range of communicative parameters, which points to variations
in the way face concerns inform everyday discourse in either culture (Chapter 2).
Having set out the conceptual and empirical terrain then, I want now to address the
question of an appropriate analytic framework for systematically addressing English
- German differences in the realisation of facework in ongoing talk. I have accorded
this question a whole chapter due to its centrality to both the research questions
and empirical foci of this study.
I shall begin by outlining the main approaches to the analysis of facework in
discourse, these being largely applications or developments of Goffman's and
Brown and Levinson's frameworks (3.1). 1 shall then change footing somewhat to
consider the contingencies and dynamics of the particular type of discourse on
which this particular study is based, that is, sociable interaction (3.2). Based on
these discussions, I shall go on to posit an approach more suitable than extant
frameworks to addressing facework in ongoing sociable conversation, that is, an
approach not having as its primary unit of analysis sociable utterances, but rather
sociable selves, and their mobilisation in the achievement of ritual -or as I shall
refer to it from here on 'sociable equilibrium' (3.3). Finally I shall conclude the
chapter (3.4).
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