Beyond politeness theory : 'Face' revisited and renewed

Journal of Pragmatics 21 (1994) 45 l-486

North-Holland

451

Beyond politeness theory :

‘Face’ revisited and renewed

LuMing Robert Mao*

Received December 1992; revised version March I993

After reviewing Brown and Levinson’s face-saving model of politeness in light of Goffman’s

original discussion of face, and tracing the origin of this concept back to Chinese, the essay

analyzes in detail the Chinese concept of face (that is, micinzi and licin), pointing out its interactional differences from Brown and Levinson’s negative and positive face. The essay further

examines an intrinsic link between face and politeness (limcio) in Chinese, and draws upon studies

of Japanese interaction and its underlying concept of face. The essay argues that Brown and Levinson’s claim to provide a universally valid model of face is empirically inadequate; the

dynamics of Chinese face call for an alternative, and more flexible framework. It is therefore

suggested that a relative face orientation construct be posited to address cultural variations in

notions of face and to identify two competing forces shaping our interactional behaviors: the ideal social identity and the ideal individual autonomy. The essay finally analyzes two Chinese

discourse activities-a pre-dinner invitation and a post-dinner offer-focusing on the complexity

of Chinese face, and discussing its persistent, mutually shared, orientation toward an ideal social

identity.

1. Introduction

Central to Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory is the concept of face and its two concomitant desires, which are ‘negative face’ and ‘positive face’. Brown and Levinson argue that these two kinds of face, though susceptible to

Correspondence to: L.R. Mao, Department of English, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056,

USA. * A portion of this essay is based on Chapter Four of my dissertation (1991). I am very grateful

to Professor Gabriele Kasper and Professor Richard W. Janney for their warm support; in

particular, Professor Janney’s careful, constructive comments and suggestions were extremely valuable in helping me revise this essay. I also want to thank the other referee, whose comments and criticism have also been very helpful to my revision. Of course, I am solely responsible for all the errors that may remain. My former colleague and dear friend ShouChing Chao made available

to me those reference books I requested in the most expeditious manner imaginable; I cannot thank him enough for that, and much more. This essay is dedicated to my mentor Michael Hancher at the University of Minnesota, USA.

037%2166/94/$07.00 0 1994 - Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved SSDI 0378-2166(93)E0065-8

452 L. R. Mao / ‘Face’ revisited and renewed

cultural variation and elaboration, embody two valid social needs that tran- scend cultural boundaries (1987: 13, 61-62).l Recent studies have shown. however, that Brown and Levinson’s argument has yet to address discourse behaviors in other non-Western cultures where the underlying interactional focus is centered not upon individualism but upon group identity (Matsu- moto, 1988, 1989; Ide, 1989) or where politeness conveys different moral meanings or normative values (Gu, 1990) or where politeness departs considerably from Western social psychological assumptions about agonistic relationships between speakers and speech strategies (Held, 1989). These, and other empirically oriented studies (see Kasper, 1990, for a comprehensive overview) have thus undermined Brown and Levinson’s argument that their ‘face-saving’2 model entails universal applicability.

Janney and Arndt (1993) further question the validity of the universality hypothesis as a useful assumption in cross-cultural politeness research. By putting Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory within the context of the ongoing debate between universalists and relativists in the Western linguistic

tradition, they suggest that, like other theories of language universals, Brown and Levinson’s theory lacks a culturally unbiased conceptual framework for objectively and empirically evaluating their politeness universals. The theory operates at a high level of idealization and requires a great degree of reduction. Such a theory, Janney and Arndt argue, ultimately turns politeness universals into ‘products’, rather than ‘objects’, of rational. logical analysis. They propose a methodological shift away from investigating universals of politeness to studying cultural identity in its various linguistic and other manifestations, a shift that helps to account for cultural variations in politeness from a more flexible point of view (Janney and Arndt. 1993: 7).

In this essay I will draw upon the insights generated by current cross- cultural research on linguistic politeness (cf. Watts et al., 1992a); I will take the concept of face beyond its familiar, European/North-American milieu, and relocate it in accordance with the native’s point of view (cf. Geertz, 1983). More specifically, I will examine what face (mi&:i and /i&z) means and signifies in Chinese, and to a lesser extent, in Japanese; and I will compare the characteristics of face in these two cultures with Brown and Levinson’s conceptualization of face, identifying those major divergences that distinctively mark them apart and inevitably challenge Brown and Levinson’s uni-

1 Their work, originally titled Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena. was first published in 1978. The 1987 reissue has a slightly different title and is prefaced with a critical

introduction surveying the field of linguistic pragmatics in the wake of their politeness model. All my references hereafter are to their 1987 edition. z Fraser characterizes Brown and Levinson’s treatment of pohteness as “the face-saving view”

(1990: 228-232). In the same essay, he reviews current politeness theories and identifies four major approaches toward studying politeness phenomena, including his own “conversational-contract

view” (1990: 232-234, see section 4 below for a discussion).

L.R. Mao I ‘Face’ revisited and renewed 453

versa1 claim. Following my challenge, I will propose an alternative and more open construct -one that puts us in a better position to account for the face divergences discovered so far, and to explain other (or yet-to-be-discovered) face dynamics. To begin to apply my face construct, I will analyze two discourse activities on which I have collected data recently. They illustrate how Chinese face confers interactional coherence and continuity upon Chi- nese discourse activities.

I consider my study as a direct response to Kasper’s call for elaborating and revising, in light of current empirical data, those politeness theories (including Brown and Levinson’s) that have laid claims on universality (1990: 194). It is an attempt to use Brown and Levinson’s original study of politeness as a point of departure for a specific, comparative study of politeness phenomena in other cultures (Janney and Arndt, 1993). I hope that this study will beget more similar studies in the near future, and will help renew our faith in the importance of maintaining and enhancing each other’s face. Let me begin with a review of Brown and Levinson’s face-saving theory of politeness.

2. Brown and Levinson’s face-saving theory of politeness

Brown and Levinson’s face-saving theory anchors itself squarely within Grice’s original model of conversation (1975, 1989), and assumes that human communication is rational, purposeful, and goal-directed (1987: 4, 58, 64). Against this Gricean backdrop, Brown and Levinson propose a politeness model that aims to account for our ‘deviations’ (that is, our polite ways in conversing) from Grice’s Cooperative Principle and its four attendant conversational maxims. What specifically informs and constitues their model is a highly abstract notion of ‘face’ -one that they argue is universal (1987: 13, 61-62). Since they acknowledge deriving their formulation of face from Erving Goffman’s classic account of face and from the English folk notion of face (1987: 61) I will address these two sources first.3

Goffman characterizes face as “the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact” (1967: 5). He sees face not as a private or an internalized property “lodged in or on his [the individual’s] body”, but as an image “located in the flow of events”, supported by other people’s judgments, and endorsed by “impersonal agencies in the situation” (1967: 7). Seen in this light, face becomes a public image that is on loan to individuals from society, and that will be withdrawn from them if they prove unworthy of it (1967: 10). To

3 Standard discussions of Brown and Levinson’s concept of face pay little attention to Goffman’s original account of face (e.g. Scollon and Scollon, 1981: 171-174; Matsumoto, 1988:

404-405; Green. 1989: 144145; Fasold, 1990: 160-161).

454 L. R. Mao I ‘Face’ revisited and renewed

secure this public image, people engage in what Goffman calls “face-work”, performing action “to make whatever [they are] doing consistent with face” (1967: 12) while trying to save their own face (a “defensive orientation”) as well as the others’ (a “protective orientation”) (1967: 14). Goffman specifies

two kinds of face-work: the “avoidance process” (avoiding potentially face- threatening acts) and the “corrective process” (performing a variety of redressive acts) (1967: 15-23). Brown and Levinson clearly tap onto Goff- man’s conception of face-work as a set of maintenance strategies, and partially incorporate his characterization of face into their concept of face ~ a point to which I will return shortly.

Brown and Levinson say that their other source is the English folk concept of face, which is linked to notions like “being embarrassed or humiliated, or ‘losing face”’ (1987: 61). But as a matter of fact, such notions of face seem to be Chinese in origin. The word ‘face’ is a literal translation of the two Chinese characters mid-nzi and Ii&n (Ho, 1975: 867). It originally appeared in the phrase ‘to save one’s face’ in the English community in China, and conveyed a meaning of ‘one’s credit, good name, reputation’; the phrase ‘to save one’s face’ as a whole refers to the ways or strategies the Chinese commonly adopted in order to avoid incurring shame or disgrace (The OED, 1987 ed.). Although ‘to save one’s face’ is not a Chinese idiom, ‘to give face’ (cf. Goffman, 1967: 9) and ‘to lose face’ are. 4 Brown and Levinson’s failure to identify the original source of face, and to consider its impact upon their formulation of face, has consequences for their theory’s claim to universality.

Presumably informed by these two sources, Brown and Levinson define face as “the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself’ (1987: 61). Yet, by characterizing face as “a public self-image” (emphasis added), they seem to part with their first source considerably. Goffman sees face as being “located in the flow of events” and “on loan from society”; for

Goffman, face is a ‘public property’ that is only assigned to individuals contingent upon their interactional behavior. In contrast, Brown and Levin- son characterize face as an image that intrinsically belongs to the individual. to the ‘self. Here, the public characteristic that is essential to Goffman’s analysis of face seems to become an ‘external’ modifier or adjunct for, rather than an ‘intrinsic’ constituent of, this image (cf. Fraser, 1990: 2388239).

The distinction I am proposing here between Goffman and Brown and Levinson has also been observed by Aston - though in somewhat different terms. For Aston, Goffman’s face represents “a negotiated outcome of talk”, whereas Brown and Levinson’s face embodies an individual’s desire or

4 On the other hand, the Short OED (3rd ed.) defines ‘to save one’s face’ as originally an

imitation of Chinese idioms (not of any particular one, though); and Wehsrer’.v NCM. World Dickmary of the American Language (1951) simply defines ‘face’ as a Chinese idiom meaning “dignity, self-respect, prestige”.

L. R. Mao 1 ‘Face’ revisited and renewed 455

intention (1988 : 101-102).5 In my view, Goffman’s face is a public, interpersonal image, while Brown and Levinson’s face is an individualistic, ‘self- oriented image.6 Such a ‘self-oriented characterization of face, which may very well underlie Western interactional dynamics, can be problematic in a non-Western context.

Brown and Levinson construe face as consisting of two specific kinds of desires or face-wants that individual interactants attribute to one another (1987: 13) and that every member knows every other member desires (1987: 61). They call these ‘negative face’ and ‘positive face’. Negative face refers to one’s want to be unimpeded by others and to one’s claim to freedom of action; positive face has to do with one’s want to be appreciated and approved of by others (1987: 61).’ While recognizing that the content of face is culture-specific and subject to much cultural elaboration, they maintain that the notion of face constituted by these two basic desires is universal (1987: 13) and they claim that face is a public self-image to which individual members of a given community orient themselves (1987: 62).

Since it is a self-image that is always ‘bartered’ in interaction, face is a ‘natural prey’ to threat of interference. Many things that we do with words are potentially face-threatening, including ordering, advising, offering, promising, criticizing, contradicting, etc. Brown and Levinson call these linguistic behaviors ‘face-threatening acts’ (‘FTAs’ for short). They further suggest that we adopt various speech strategies to minimize or eliminate such threats. These strategies range from avoiding a given FTA altogether, to performing it with or without “redressive action”, to going “off record” by yielding “more than one unambiguously attributable intention” (1987 : 68-69). Redressive action that is addressed to the hearer’s negative face is “negative politeness”, and redressive action that is directed to the hearer’s positive face is “positive politeness” (1987 : 70).

What needs to be stressed, though, is that face-work is also a mutually beneficial enterprise. In complimenting a partner’s new dress, for example, a

S The other distinction Aston identifies between Goffman and Brown and Levinson pertains to

the speaker’s face in interaction. For Goffman, following Aston, the speaker is primarily concerned with his or her own face, with “avoiding giving the impression of being an offender”;

on the other hand, for Brown and Levinson, the speaker is primarily concerned with the hearer’s

face, with “avoiding giving offence” (Aston, 1988: 102). My discussion in section 3.2, echoes,

implicitly at least, Aston’s point here (see also Wenstrom, 1991). 6 The distinction being discussed here in some ways validates the ‘socio-psychological approach

that Janney and Arndt (1992) advocate-an approach that views politeness not as “a static logical

concept” but as “a dynamic interpersonal activity that can be observed, described, and explained in functional interactional terms” (1992: 22, see also section 3.2). ’ Janney and Arndt conceive of “negative face” as “the need for personal face” and “positive

face” as “the need for interpersonal face” (1992: 29). Negotiating these two basic face-needs,

according to Janney and Arndt, calls for “tact”, for “behaving in an interpersonally supportive way” by subtly modifying verbal and nonverbal activities (1992: 23).


speaker is not only attending to the partner’s positive face (her* desire to be liked), but also consolidating or ‘anointing’ his own positive face - ‘showing off’, as it were, his own good taste, and encouraging the partner’s ‘compli- mentary feedback’. In performing such a speech act, the speaker could very well initiate a round of mutual enhancement of positive face, consummating a genuine talk exchange. Thus, face-work aims not merely to preserve face but to enhance it, and to effect a qualitative change in interpersonal relationships (cf. also Aston, 1988: 102-103).

Brown and Levinson also discuss the act of complimenting, but they focus only on its face-threatening aspects. For them, by complimenting the partner’s dress, the speaker may indicate a desire for it. Such an act on the part of the speaker, they say, may impede the partner’s freedom of action and constitute a threat to her negative face (1987: 66). Moreover, if the partner accepts the compliment, according to Brown and Levinson, she may also feel compelled to disparage the dress or return the compliment, either of which may detract from her positive face (1987: 68). This line of reasoning prompts Schmidt to

characterize Brown and Levinson’s theory as embodying “an overly pessi- mistic, rather paranoid view of human social interaction” (1980: 104). Their exclusive focus on individual wants poses potential problems to their overall characterization of face, and weakens their claim for its universal significance. 9

3. ‘Face’ in Chinese

The question now becomes whether Brown and Levinson’s basic conceptualization of face can stand up to cross-cultural scrutiny, and whether it can shed light on the fundamentals of interactional cooperation. To put it differently,

can their ‘face’- a universal construct ~ subsume other ‘faces’ manifested in some non-Western cultures, say, in Chinese culture? In this section, I will investigate the Chinese concept of face and challenge Brown and Levinson’s claim that their conceptualization of face is universal. I will explore an intrinsic link between face and politeness in Chinese (cf. Gu, 1990) - one that further attests to the interactional dynamics of Chinese face. In section 4, I

a For ease of exposition, I use the feminine pronoun to refer to the partner and the masculine pronoun to refer to the speaker. 9 Since the primary aim of my essay is to discuss the concept of face, I will skip reviewing Brown and Levinson’s three social-motivational variables, which are constructed to assess the seriousness or weightiness of an FTA (1987: 74). However, recent studies have shown that these three variables are not quite adequate to calculate the weightiness of FTAs; and that they should be considered not

as being fixed, but as being constantly negotiated in an ongoing interaction, against a constellation

of identities, beliefs, orientations, and evaluations. For more on this subject, see. for example. Coupland et al. (1988: 257-258), Kasper (1990: 201-205) Watts et al. (1992b: 8-9). and Brown and Levinson’s own introduction to the reissue of Politeness (1987: 1S16).

L. R. Mao I ‘Face’ revisited and renewed 451

will describe the Japanese concept of face (Matsumoto, 1988, 1989; Ide, 1989) and briefly discuss Fraser’s conversational-contract analysis of politeness and face-both of which appear to support my challenge to Brown and Levinson’s claim to universality.1° I begin with the very beginning: the Chinese concept of face.

3.1. Mianzi and lian: A public image

As indicated above, two Chinese characters are used to convey the denotative meaning of the word ‘face’ (that is, ‘the front of the head’); they are mi&nzi and licin- though licin is by far the more frequently used character for this meaning. Both characters encode connotative meanings as well, which have to do with reputable, respectable images that individuals can claim for themselves from communities in which they interact, or to which they belong (Ho, 1975: 883; Xiandaihanyiicidian, 1981).

Closely related to this general concept of Chinese face are two specific meanings conveyed, respectively, by mi&zi and licin. On the one hand, micinzi stands for prestige or reputation, which is either achieved through getting on in life (Hu, 1944: 4.5) or ascribed (or even imagined) by other members of one’s own community (Ho, 1975: 869-870). On the other hand, Zicin refers to “the respect of the group for a man with a good moral reputation”; it embodies “the confidence of society in the integrity of ego’s moral character”, and it is “both a social sanction for enforcing moral standards and an internalized sanction” (Hu, 1944: 45).

The meaning conveyed by midnzi has apparently been incorporated into the definition of face by many contemporary English dictionaries. For example, Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1986) defines face as “dignity or prestige”; the American Heritage Dictionary (1981) characterizes face as “value or standing in the eyes of others”; and the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1985) sees face as “a state of being respected by others”.

However, the meaning of Zicin is not mentioned in these dictionaries; nor is it alluded to in standard discussions of the concept of face (e.g. Scollon and Scollon, 1981; Brown and Levinson, 1987). Relying on Smith’s discussion (1894: 17) of what the phrase ‘to give face’ means in Chinese, Goffman sees

lo Here, and indeed elsewhere, I am not claiming that Brown and Levinson’s conceptualization

of face has not been validated, in varying degrees, in some other non-Western contexts (e.g.

Scollon and Scollon, 1981; Scarcella and Brunak, 1981; Katriel, 1986; Brown and Levinson, 1987: 13-15). What I am trying to illustrate is that a claim to universality is truly a tall order, which demands an array of wide-ranging empirical data before it can be reasonably entertained.

Otherwise, such a claim is bound to fall short of reality and betray some kind of theoretical

idealism (cf. Coupland et al., 1988: 261; see also Watts, 1992: 5458, for his analysis of politeness as a marked extension of ‘politic verbal behavior’).


the same phrase as an act “to arrange for another to take a better line than he might otherwise have been able to take” (1967: 9). What Goffman is referring to here is clearly more connected to the meaning of mirinzi than to that of Ii&. For Zicin can only be earned but not given gratis, and it is “both a social

sanction for moral standards and an internalized sanction” (Hu, 1944: 45, emphasis added). To ‘give licin’ is not idiomatic in Chinese, but ‘to give micinzi’ is.

There is generally a difference in Chinese between ‘to lose firin’ and ‘to lose mirinzi’. ‘To lose Zicin’ is a far more serious act than ‘to lose mirinzi’, since the former amounts, in varying degrees of intensity, to a condemnation by the community for socially distasteful, or immoral behavior or judgment (Hu, 1944: 45). ‘To lose micinzi’, on the other hand, is to suffer a loss of one’s reputation or prestige because of a certain failure or misfortune; an individual who turns from rich to poor due to some misfortune or fierce competition will have lost micinzi but not Ii& (Ho, 1975: 871). But, once one’s Ii& is lost, his or her mihnzi can hardly be maintained. Occasionally, mihzzi in modern

Chinese may carry a slightly disapproving overtone, because it can imply that the individual in question may be overconcerned about his or her outward appearance.

While it is important to recognize their different emphasis-one that Hu (1944) has identified- the distinction between micinzi and litin is not categori- cal, and the two characters may be used interchangeably. For example, Chao and Yang (1947) take m&y& mid-nzi (‘not having micinzi’) and me’iyciu Ii& (‘not having licin’) as being synonymous. The context can also lead one to determine which of the two meanings is being conveyed by either character (see Ho, 1957: 868).11 But one thing remains constant: the moral connotation or social judgment of character that informs licin is, at most, secondary in micinzi.

One caveat seems to be in order before I move on to look at the main differences between Chinese face and Brown and Levinson’s face. My discussion so far in this section builds on Hu (1944) and on her dual conceptualization of Chinese face. As a result, one may ask, legitimately, whether or not what was proposed by Hu in 1944 has undergone any major changes in mainland China since 1949, when the Communists toppled the Nationalist Government. It is true that mainland China has witnessed dramatic social transformations since 1944. However, the core concept of face articulated by Hu in 1944, I wish to claim, is still relevant to, and generative of, interactional behaviors among mainland Chinese (see also section 6). For example, a majority of collocations with mirinzi and Ii&-upon which Hu based her original discussion- have continued to be used in mainland China with the

I1 Occasionally, licinmitin is another variation used to refer to either /i&n or mibzi, though it sounds more formal.


same kind of connotation as was prevalent in her time (see also Ho, 1975; Gu, 1990). These linguistic expressions reinforce the dynamics of Chinese face. What I am trying to illustrate here in light of Hu (1944) is actually an interactional orientation on the part of the individual speaker toward estab- lishing connectedness to, and seeking interpersonal harmony with, one’s own community - an orientation that micinzi and litin encode and epitomize. Recent studies of the mainland Chinese have shown that such an orientation remains central to the Chinese cultural imperative. The tendency to act primarily in compliance with the anticipated expectations of communal norms rather than personal desires continues to be observed by the mainland Chinese, and even by the most rapidly modernizing segments of the Chinese population (see Bond, 1986) for empirically based studies). What informs this tendency, in large measure, is the Chinese concept of face. I2

3.2. Chinese Iface’ and Brown and Levinson’s tface’

Two major differences between Chinese face and Brown and Levinson’s face seem to surface out of the foregoing discussion of mibzi and li&n. These two differences, I believe, inevitably undermine Brown and Levinson’s claim that their face construct enjoys universal significance.

The first difference has to do with their overall conceptualization of face- a difference that has been briefly alluded to in the above discussion. By defining face as “the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself’ (1987: 61, emphasis added), Brown and Levinson center their definition upon the individual-rather than the communal- aspect of face; that is, face becomes, in the last analysis, a self-image. The self is the principal constituent that informs and contextualizes the content of face; it acts like an ‘epicenter’ toward which others (that is, ‘they’) converge, and against which they are measured. The self is ‘public’ only to the extent that it depends on others’s face being maintained (Brown and Levinson, 1987: 61); that it is ‘negotiated’ with others via discourse activity. The self ‘appropriates’ the public only to preserve its own interests. The overall composition of this self-image, with its negative and positive aspects, remains constant and predetermined: it is not susceptible to external pressure or interactional dynamics, and it only concerns the individual’s ‘wants’ and ‘desires’. To protect and enhance one’s face amounts to projecting a self in accordance with the rational, cooperative assumptions that all participants in a discourse activity are presumed to abide by.

I2 The resilience of the Chinese concept of face, despite social changes, has also been demonstrated by Yang (1981) who shows, among other things, that the Chinese students at National Taiwan University tend to create a socially acceptable impression in the eyes of their partners even

at the expense of their immediate personal gain in a social/exchange situation (1981: 160) -even

though Taiwan has also undergone a series of rapid social changes since World War II. Again, this interactional tendency can be accounted for, I think, by the core concept of Chinese face.

460 L. R. Mao 1 ‘Face’ revisited and renewed

If one expects to encounter the same kind of orientation in Chinese face, one is bound to be disappointed. Chinese face does not privilege the self nearly as much as does Brown and Levinson’s definition of face. Rather, Chinese face encodes a reputable image that individuals can claim for themselves as they interact with others in a given community; it is intimately linked to the views of the community and to the community’s judgment and perception of the individual’s character and behavior. Chinese face emphasizes not the accommodation of individual ‘wants’ or ‘desires’ but the harmony of individual conduct with the views and judgement of the community. As a public image, Chinese face depends upon, and is indeed determined by, the participation of others. To maintain one’s Chinese face is, then, to perform a communal act “in the context of the immediate dyadic relationships in which we are inevitably circumscribed” (Tu, 1985: 244). Chinese face, to quote Goffman again, is “on loan . from society” (1967: 10); it belongs to the individual or to the self only to the extent that the individual acts in full compliance with that face; it is earned through an interactional process.

Chinese face is, in other words, not an inalienable, God-given right. The second difference pertains to the content of face. Brown and Levinson

conceive of face as consisting of negative face and positive face. Their negative face refers to, and values, an individual’s need to be free of external impositions. But mirinzi communicates something different: it identifies a Chinese desire to secure public acknowledgement of one’s prestige or reputation. One may argue, within Brown and Levinson’s framework, that by tailoring their behavior to this desire, Chinese in fact yield to external imposition, and thus, willingly or unwillingly, impair their negative face - hence, the relevance of the model. But this kind of argument misses the mark. That is, when one obtains mihzzi in Chinese, one wins a recognition not so much of one’s claim to freedom of action as of one’s claim to the respect or prestige of the community. This recognition may or may not be deserved. Whatever freedom accrues to such recognition is of secondary consideration. In short, micinz-i in Chinese cannot be properly understood in terms of negative face.

Micinzi echoes the Confucian tradition, a tradition that advocates subordi- nating the individual to the group or the community, and regards self- cultivation as an act of communicating with, and sharing in, an ever-expand- ing circle of human-relatedness (Tu, 1985: 249).13 An individual is presumed to seek the respect of the group or the community, but not to satisfy the desire for freedom. This kind of presumption underlies many Chinese discourse

I3 In general, the Chinese tradition de-emphasizes such notions as ‘individual’ or ‘freedom’. which did not have their Chinese equivalents until terms were invented for these notions in recent

times. In addition to Confucianism, other intellectual schools of thought also downplay the

importance of the individual. Taoism, for example. extols Nature over the human group (Bodde. 1962: 65-66; Mote, 1989: 67-73); Buddhism expresses a more extreme attitude. completely denying the existence of self or ego (Bodde, 1962: 66).


activities (see section 6) and takes on an affective quality that is indicative of that culture’s emotional emphasis (cf. Brown and Levinson, 1987: 297).

Face-(mihnzi-)work is also positively reciprocal. By giving mirinzi to others, one also reinforces one’s own midnzi, because such an act lends credence to

one’s midnzi as well. In trying to build on Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory, Scollon and Scollon (1981) caution that interactional systems like “solidarity politeness” (their term for positive politeness) may risk developing “runaway positive feedback loops” if they allow, and indeed thrive on, both participants’ winning in a discourse activity (1981: 176); such systems can become “addictive” if there are no internal mechanisms to arrest their “runaway growth”, or their “ever-increasing expression of commonality” (1981: 176).

Scollon and Scollon’s caution here does not apply to the dynamics of mihzi. It is true that mihzi can accrue to both parties in a discourse activity, but there is a cap imposed upon any potential “runaway growth”. This cap is instituted by Ii&. As we now know, lirin constitutes the trust of the community that an individual is expected to have internalized. It serves as a general code of behavior for people to follow as they enact their given roles in interacting with others. For an individual to pad or over-increase another’s midnzi may yield an increase in one’s own micinzi, but such an act amounts to an infraction of Ii&, of an honest, decent image; and to gain mirinzi at the expense of Ii&n in the end will cost one both.

It may still be argued that what micinzi espouses is ultimately analogous to the core notion of “respect behavior”, which Brown and Levinson regard as very much embedded in negative politeness (1987: 129). It would not be inaccurate to suggest that mihzi is at least partly related to giving due recognition to others’ social status and achievement. However, this kind of argument obscures one crucial difference. Brown and Levinson’s negative face represents a desire to be left alone to enjoy a sense of one’s ‘territorial integrity’; whether or not one is interacting with the others becomes less important. In contrast, Chinese michzi foregrounds one’s dependence on society’s recognition of one’s social standing and of one’s ‘reputable’ existence, and subsequently, on society’s endorsement of one’s bragging about it.

While micinzi clearly stands apart from negative face, li6n seems to bear some resemblance to positive face. In varying degrees, both Ii& and positive face identify an individual’s desire to be liked and to be approved of by the others. But their resemblance, I am afraid, goes no further than that. For one thing, the distinctive moral overtone evidenced in licin is not registered in positive face. If one loses Ii&, one is most likely to suffer condemnation by the community, because one’s conduct will be considered socially disagreeable

or even immoral (Hu, 1944: 46). By the same token, as long as one lives up to the socially endorsed code of conduct, one is entitled to the same claim to lib as everyone else is; that is, to “an honest, decent ‘face”’ (Hu, 1944: 46). Seen

462 L. R. Mao I ‘Fare’ rrvisifed and renew-d

in this context, licin is more socially situated than positive face; it embodies the ‘imprimatur’ of the society as a whole rather than the ‘goodwill’ of another individual. Similarly, lia’n is not ‘negotiable’ on a one-to-one basis, while micinzi generally is. Licin is earned cumulatively by an individual in

relation to the rest of the community, and it depends on how that individual internalizes the communal sanction.

To suggest that ficin is more socially situated than positive face does not mean that litin is completely immune from dyadic interaction-although the impact of a single discourse activity on licin is more likely to be incremental and indirect. For example, if a speaker openly challenges a partner’s opposi- tion to abortion, following Brown and Levinson, all things being equal, the speaker is also implicitly expressing a dislike of this belief, and hence threatening the partner’s positive face. The speaker can also perform the challenging act in a more subtle manner, opting for an ‘off-record’ strategy in an attempt to ‘anoint’ the partner’s positive face.

If the speaker performs the same single speech act (or ‘FTA’ in Brown and Levinson’s terminology) in Chinese, and in the same manner, this only threatens the partner’s mibnzi. But if the challenge is repeated for days, this may eventually threaten the partner’s Ii&z, for such an act may very well be construed as representing a negative judgment of the partner’s overall character from the community. On the other hand, if, after hearing the speaker’s challenge for the first time, the partner gives a well thought-out response in a respectful manner, this protects his or her micinzi and ensures the ‘well-being’ of his or her long-term litin. But if the partner overreacts and starts calling the speaker names, he or she then risks losing micinzi, and, most likely, detracts from his or her licin. While positive face often creates a sense of intimacy or closeness - however ephemeral or superficial this may be ~ no personal intimacy is really attached to ficin.14

3.3. Chinese tface’ and politeness (limdo)

So far, I have concentrated only on miLinzi and Ii&z, without exploring the relationship between these two concepts and politeness (limcio) in Chinese. I now suggest that micinzi and libn constitute a quintessential aspect of mainland Chinese politeness.

There is a growing awareness that the term ‘politeness’ needs to be defined more precisely and consistently if more fruitful cross-cultural politeness research is to be pursued (cf. Watts et al., 1992a). Watts et al. (1992b) suggest

I4 Watts et al. suggest that Brown and Levinson’s face, if seen as the basis for a universal theory

of politeness, runs the risk of ethnocentricity, for it embodies, metaphorically, a series of needs typical of the Anglo-American culture (1992b: 9-10). On the other hand, they fail to mention the origin of face in Chinese.


that a distinction should be made between “first-order and second-order politeness”, or between conventional ways “in which polite behaviour is perceived and talked about by members of socio-cultural groups” and a research construct ‘politeness’, which is part of “a theory of social behaviour and language usage” (1992b: 3). Similarly, Ide et al. (1992) demonstrate in empirical terms that politeness is conceptualized differently by Americans and Japanese; there are noticeable discrepancies in structural patterns between the English ‘polite’ and the Japanese teineina.

As regards Watts et al’s (1992a) distinction between first- and second- order politeness, what I will address here pertains more to first-order politeness; that is, to how politeness is manifested and conveyed within the framework of a given culture. More specifically, to be polite (that is, ydufimtio) in Chinese discourse is, in many respects, to know how to attend to each other’s micinzi and licin and to enact speech acts appropriate to and worthy of such an image. Otherwise stated, mainland Chinese speakers can be seen as being polite if they demonstrate with words their knowledge of midnzi and lia’n; such a demonstration tends to epitomize politeness in the eyes of their discourse partners. To be polite without a proper understanding of micinzi and litin is almost analogous to trying to throw a party without guests. I5

Gu (1990: 241) suggests that Brown and Levinson advocate the position that “face and politeness hold a means-to-end relation between them”; but he does not mention whether such a position affects his analysis of Chinese politeness. Here I want to claim that face and politeness, at least in Chinese, are very much interrelated; there is no means-to-end relation between them. Face and politeness in Chinese go hand in hand.

Gu (1990) investigates Chinese politeness (Km&) as manifested in actual interaction. Chinese politeness, according to Gu, is characterized by a tendency to denigrate oneself and respect the other; this tendency can be traced back to the classical Chinese notion of li’: feudal hierarchy and order (1990:

I5 To suggest that micinzi and litin significantly inform Chinese politeness does not mean that

there are no other notions related to, or underlying it. Gu (1990) has assigned four characteristics to the concept of Chinese politeness (see my discussion below). In Li Ji (On Li or Li Chi:

Book qf Rites) - one of the six Confucian classics believed to be compiled by Dai Sheng during

the West Han Dynasty (Cihai, 1979)) li, from which limcio is derived (Cihai, 1979) connotes a

series of notions or images. Combined together, these notions or images represent, in the last analysis, the Way of governing and life (Li, 1966: i) - a meaning that is clearly absent in limcio.

For exaple, Ii means (a) being deferential to others as well as to oneself; (b) being solemn in

appearance; and (c) being refined or cultivated in speech (Wang, 1967: 2); to master li is to be respectful, moderate, and humble (Wang, 1967: 4). It certainly would be instructive to study these features manifested in our discourse behaviors, but this task lies beyond the scope of this

essay. On the other hand, it seems to me that these features bear a striking resemblance to miirnzi and litin (see also Gu, 1992: 1 l-12, for a discussion of the link between li and /inrio in Chinese).

464 L. R. Mao 1 ‘Face’ revisited and reneu~~~

238-239).16 says the concept of Km& includes “respectfulness, modesty, attitudinal warmth, and refinement” (1990: 239). Following Leech’s account of politeness pragmatics, and especially its regulative orientation, Gu analyzes IimLio in terms of maxims, suggesting that the maxim-oriented approach is appropriate, because politeness in the Chinese context “exercises its normative function in containing individual speech acts as well as the sequence of talk exchanges” (1990: 242). l7

From time to time in his discussion, Gu draws our attention to the notion of face. He observes that the Chinese notion of negative face differs from Brown and Levinson’s definition (1990: 241-242). Gu bases this observation on the fact that such speech acts as ‘inviting’, ‘offering’, and ‘promising’ in Chinese are not generally regarded as threatening to the hearer’s negative face (1990: 242). For example, to insist on inviting someone to dinner is considered to be polite in Chinese even if the invitee declines the invitation. Such an act does not pose a threat to the invitee’s negative face, as it might, according to Brown and Levinson, in an English-speaking context (Gu, 1990: 242).

However, Gu’s discussion does not go far enough. While recognizing the incompatibility between the Chinese notion of negative face and Brown and Levinson’s characterization of negative face, Gu never provides his own definition of Chinese negative face; nor does he state whether the concept of negative face, which he adopts from Brown and Levinson without any explanation, applies to Chinese interaction at all. As a matter of fact, he seems to confuse, perhaps inadvertently, negative face with Chinese Ii&z. Gu (1990: 242) writes:

“The Chinese negative face is not threatened in this [inviting] case. Rather. it is threatened when

self cannot live up to what s/he has claimed. or when what self has done is likely to incur ill fame

or reputation.”

What is threatened in this kind of scenario is not Chinese (yet-to-be- defined) negative face, but Chinese licin -an image that either the society

I6 Gu translates the first sentence in LiJi into “Deference cannot not be shown”; he implies that deference is intended for others only (1992: 238). But it is open to discussion. 1 think, whether the

sentence does not imply, judging by the overall context, “others as well as the self’-an interpretation that I actually favor (see my note 15 and Li, 1966: 1). Similarly, Legge translates the first sentence into “Always and in everything let there be reverence”, thus leaving the intended recipient not restricted to the addressee only (1967: 61).

I7 Any detailed discussion of Gu’s maxim-oriented approach towards Chinese politeness is beyond the scope and focus of this essay. At first glance, however. it seems that the regulative or normative aspect of politeness in the Chinese context does not oblige one to treat politeness in terms of maxims any more than pervasive politeness phenomena in human interaction warrants us

to account for politeness in terms of strategies. There is no intrinsic relationship between politeness phenomena and maximis; there is only a heuristic, strategic relationship between the two.


accords the individual or the individual earns for him- or herself. In other words, the perceived threat here has to do not so much with the individual’s want to be unimpeded as with his or her public image. It is the threat of litin being damaged or being withdrawn. Naturally, once a Chinese individual’s fitin is injured, the wish for freedom of action (if it is ever entertained) is bound to be left unfulfilled- a casualty, though, of much lesser, and perhaps peripheral, consequence.

What underlies Gu’s confusion, I think, is his failure to properly examine Chinese face (that is, micinzi and firin) and to call Brown and Levinson’s conceptualization of face into question-even though he rightly observes that Brown and Levinson’s face mode1 does not adequately account for his Chinese data. In analyzing a piece of Chinese invitational discourse, Gu observes, for example, that issuing an invitation is, in the Chinese context, intrinsically polite; this does not quite corroborate Brown and Levinson’s claim that inviting poses a threat to the inviter’s positive face (1990: 253-254). However, not only does Gu fail to follow up on his own insight, but he also seems to equivocate on this point later. After presenting his sample data on Chinese invitations, he concludes that issuing an invitation does threaten the inviter’s positive face; that is, it “present[s] his positive face to the invitee for his approval” (1990: 255). But does this conclusion mean that inviting henceforth is no longer “intrinsically polite” (Gu, 1990: 253)? Must we assume that positive face precisely corresponds with Chinese face in this instance, and assume that there is no variance between the two?

Similarly, Gu acknowledges that accepting an invitation risks the invitee’s face, for the invitee may be seen as being greedy. But he does not identify which aspect of face is threatened in this case (1990: 254,255). Assuming that it is positive face, we are still left wondering whether Chinese invitational discourse has anything to do with negative face. If Chinese invitational discourse indeed does not involve negative face, we must wonder what this means for Brown and Levinson’s face model as a whole. Otherwise stated, if the interactional dynamics manifested in Chinese invitational discourse are indicative of how to be polite in Chinese, and yet are clearly devoid of negative face as defined by Brown and Levinson, we are compelled to question the validity of Brown and Levinson’s face model, and feel obligated to start investigating the dynamics of Chinese face and its link to politeness on their own terms.18

Is In ‘Invitational discourse and Chinese identity’ (Mao, 1992) I also analyze Chinese invitational discourse. But my analysis differs from Gu’s on two major grounds. First, I stress the processual characteristic in Chinese invitational discourse. I argue that no single speech act, such as an initial act of invitation, determines and signifies one’s intention. Instead, the entire

invitational process, the actual enacting of a sequence of speech acts, secures the outcome. Gu, in contrast, seems to imply that each individual speech act imparts a clear-cut meaning (1990: 253). Second, my analysis foregrounds the ritual, repetitive aspect in Chinese invitation-one that is

466 L. R. Mao 1 ‘Face’ revisired and renewed

My critique Gu’s study politeness in Chinese is to achieve things. First, is meant illustrate the of addressing

intrinsic relationship face (mihzi and lirin) and politeness (Km&) in the Chinese context (see also section 6). To understand Chinese politeness,

it is necessary to study face (mi&zi and En) from an ‘emit’ perspective, both focusing on the native’s point of view rather than tying it to a ‘procrustean bed’, and comparing this perspective with other cultural perspectives (Janney and Arndt, 1993). Second, it is meant to echo Gu’s contention that Chinese politeness (K’ho) is informed by a tendency to denigrate the self and respect the other (1990: 238); that formulating maxims to “give substance to the Polite- ness Principle” in this context (1990: 245) could represent a useful-though not an intrinsic-approach to the study of Chinese politeness. However, I also intend to suggest that such an approach remains incomplete until we bring ‘on board’ Chinese midnzi and licin. These two concepts help ‘give substance to’ politeness (Kmho), and they shed light on whatever maxims we propose.

Not only does the Chinese concept of face (mirinzi and litin) lie outside

Brown and Levinson’s face construct, but also the Japanese concept of face seems to be no less ‘recalcitrant’. The following section discusses this Japanese challenge, and seeks to establish some connection between the Japanese and Chinese concept of face.

4. ‘Face’ in Japanese

Brown and Levinson point out that Japanese culture is, relatively speaking, negative-politeness oriented (1987: 245); they suggest that the sense of imposition or debt among Japanese is probably greater in comparison with Anglo- American culture (1987: 247). On the other hand, they maintain that this

cultural variation does not affect their basic notion of face as consisting of the want to be approved of and the want to be left alone. Some recent studies concerning this subject, however, have seriously challenged such a claim (Hill et al., 1986; Matsumoto, 1988, 1989; Ide, 1989; Ide et al., 1992).

Citing sociological, anthropological, and linguistic studies of Japanese culture as evidence, Matsumoto questions Brown and Levinson’s claim that the constituents of face could apply to Japanese interaction (1988). She argues that what is most alien to the Japanese notion of face is Brown and Levinson’s formulation of negative face as a desire to be unimpeded in action. Such a desire, according to her, presupposes that “the basic unit of society is the individual”-a presupposition that is uncharacteristic of Japanese

essential in attending to and cultivating the participants’ mitinzi and lirin. In contrast, Gu does not touch upon this characteristic at all (1990). My discussion in section 6 builds on, and in several aspects moves beyond, this essay by concentrating upon the participants’ mibzi and licit-z.


culture (1988: 405). What is characteristic of Japanese culture is not a claim to individual freedom of action but a distinctive and perennial emphasis on interpersonal relationships; such an emphasis revolves around acknowledging and maintaining one’s position in relation to other members of the same community, and in accordance with their perceptions about such a position. This kind of emphasis constitutes the Japanese concept of face (Matsumoto, 1988: 405-408).

The concern for social interrelationship is encoded in the Japanese language, whose complex honorific system is the most obvious instance of this encoding. A Japanese speaker cannot help but make morphological or lexical choices based on the given interpersonal relationship. In saying ‘Today is Saturday’ in Japanese, the speaker has to select a copula with proper honorifics (plain, polite, or superpolite), depending on his or her relationship with the addressee, and on the latter’s perception of this relationship. As a result, there are many variations on this plain English sentence in Japanese (Matsumoto, 1988: 415416). These linguistic choices become the bulk of Japanese face-work. To attend to each other’s face in Japanese culture is to recognize each other’s social position and to convey such a recognition through the proper linguistic means, including formulaic expressions, honorifics, verbs of giving and receiving, and other “relation-acknowledging devices” (Matsumoto, 1988: 4099423).

After being introduced to someone, the speaker may say the following, or some variation of it: “Dooza yorosiku onegaisimasu”, which is literally translated as “I ask you to please treat me well/take care of me” (Matsumoto, 1988: 409). In uttering this sentence, the speaker is implicitly making a direct request or an unveiled imposition. Yet, the speaker is not trying to mitigate the imposition that such a direct request usually entails by way of the politeness marker ‘please’; nor is the speaker stroking the partner’s positive face by showing some sign of intimacy. Rather, the speaker is expressing deference by humbling him- or herself and placing him- or herself in a lower position (Matsumoto, 1988: 409-410). Deferent imposition, Matsumoto ex- plains, “enhance[s] the good self-image (that is, the ‘face’) of the addressee” since “the acknowledgement of interdependence is encouraged” in Japanese society (1988: 410). To the extent that speakers are successful in achieving the goal of acknowledging the current interdependent relationship, they enhance the partner’s face as well as their own.

Here, there seems to be an interesting resemblance between the Japanese concept of face, which places great significance on social relationships and communal interdependence, and the Chinese concept of face (micinzi and I&). Specifically, both stress the public, communal aspect, and both foreground others’ perceptions of whether a given relationship has been acknowledged (Japanese), or a given sanction has been secured (Chinese). Such a concept of face differs considerably from the notion of negative face.

468 L. R. Mao I ‘Fare’ revisited and renewed

It is true that Japanese culture has often been described as a deference culture- a description that I suspect may have led Brown and Levinson to claim that it is also negative-politeness oriented. After all, negative politeness, according to their theory, is the heart of deference behavior. But deference in Japanese culture, as the above example shows, focuses on the hierarchical social structure between addresser and addressee (Matsumoto, 1988: 424) rather than on people’s desire to be free of imposition as is suggested by Brown and Levinson. When the addressee assumes a higher or lower social status, the addresser is expected to acknowledge this social relationship, and show his or her (even ostensible) dependence (amae) on it, by making deferent impositions (if inferior), or by displaying his or her disposition to take care of the addressee (if superior). lg To say that Japanese culture is a deference culture without properly considering its underlying content may risk arriving at inadequate conclusions.

Ide (1989) makes a similar point. She criticizes Brown and Levinson’s face model for failing to give an adequate account of both formal linguistic forms -including honorifics-and the concept of group membership in face-to-face interaction in Japanese (1989: 230). She points out that the model neglects a distinctive property in Japanese speakers; that is, their sense of place or role in a given situation relative to social conventions (1989: 230-232). This sense or intuition is known as wakimae in Japanese, which she translates as “discernment” (1989: 230).20

Linguistic discernment refers to the systematic encoding of “the distinction between the ranks or the roles of the speaker, the referent, and the addressee” (Ide, 1989: 230); it conveys a mutual desire to acknowledge, and to perpe- tuate-via language-social distinctions that are either ascribed or prescribed by the conversational participants. Normally, Japanese speakers choose proper linguistic forms to encode different kinds of relationships that are required to be acknowledged in each given situation (Ide, 1989: 231).

This mandatory need to show one’s sense of place and role in society through interaction is undoubtedly ‘alien’ to the concept of negative face, to its inherent emphasis on people’s need for freedom of action. Although Ide

I9 Matsumoto also reports that the strategy of camaraderie is used in Japan among equals,

which is realized by “plain” and “neutral” forms of predicates; but situations for enacting this strategy are very limited (1988: 424). *O For Hill et al., discernment “refers to the almost automatic observation of socially-

agreed-upon rules and applies to both verbal and non-verbal behavior” (1986: 348). On the other hand, Watts et al. now see wakimae as referring to “the use of the standard in a formal setting” (1992b: 5). Such a definition comes very close to what Janney and Arndt call “social

politeness” - “standardised strategies for getting gracefully into, and back out of, recurring social situations” (1992: 23). I thank Tomoko Kuribayashi for discussing with me the concept of wakimae and its similarity to the Chinese concept of face.

L. R. Mao / ‘Face’ revisited and renewed 469

does not bring her discussion of discernment to bear on positive face and on the latter’s relevance to Japanese ways of speaking, it seems that a desire for approval can be inferred from the Japanese readiness to acknowledge and maintain each other’s status differences. However, as I have indicated in my discussion of Chinese face, such a desire remains secondary at best, and its fulfillment, if at all, is only seen as a welcome addition. In other words, what initially motivates Japanese speakers to engage in this kind of face-work is the need to conform to social conventions and to express their desire to be part of the community.

Japanese discernment, as described by Ide (1989), seems to echo Chinese ficin, in that both concepts appear to project a public image that either observes status differences and social interdependence, or internalizes social sanctions and solidifies itself in the company of others. While Japanese discernment is systematically encoded in the Japanese language at the morphological and lexical levels, Chinese lick is, more often than not, enacted at the discourse level, and to a much lesser extent, at the lexical level. Licin is often located in the flow of discourse activities, and gets further enhanced through repetitive, almost ritually resonating, speech acts (see section 6).

Ide concludes that because Japanese society is defined in terms of group membership and social hierarchy, the basis for interaction in the Japanese context is not face, but “the role or status defined in a particular situation” (1989: 241). In contrast, when individualism becomes an overriding concern of interaction, Ide argues, it is easy to see why face, with its emphasis on individual need, constitutes the key to interaction (1989: 241). Here, she seems to associate face exclusively with the individual, with the self - though she does not explicitly state this association,

However, as I have argued in the preceding sections, face does not have to be considered as the sole ‘prerogative’ of the individual. Insofar as Chinese micinzi and lidn are concerned, face is a ‘public property’; it is like a covenant between the individual and the public. That is, face is on loan to the individual from society (Goffman, 1967: lo), and the individual is obliged to act in a way that is worthy of this ‘loan’. In light of this interpretation, the (Japanese) need to acknowledge and maintain role or status in relation to others in particular, well-defined situations is actually very much related to the concept of face; and such a need definitely shows some family resemblance to the (Chinese) need to claim an image in accordance with values and perceptions that are defined by the society and negotiated through discourse activities. Furthermore, both needs are motivated and reinforced by a common internal realization that one may fail to live up to these social conventions and moral values due to his or her own failings; one must always try to shield his or her family from potential shame and disgrace (cf. DeVos, 1985: 170-176). This kind of introspection, it seems to me, has a great deal to do with face.

470 L. R. Mao I ‘Face’ revisired and renewed

Fraser and Nolen (1981) and Fraser (1990), in trying to account for politeness phenomena from a conversational-contract perspective, also move away from the concept of face. According to their account, people enter into conversation with an understanding of a set of rights and obligations. These

rights and obligations are prescribed by social institutions, determined by previous encounters, or yet to be renegotiated in the current interaction; and they are part and parcel of the “conversational contract” (CC in short) (Fraser and Nolen, 1981: 93-94; Fraser, 1990: 232).

Seen in this light, to be polite is to comply with the rights and obligations that conversation participants hold toward each other; that is, to comply with the terms and conditions of the CC. By the same token, any violation of the CC gives rise to impoliteness (Fraser and Nolen, 1981: 96). One expects politeness to exist in every conversation and ultimately reflect the participants’ adherence to Grice’s Cooperative Principle (CP in short) (Fraser, 1990: 233).

At first glance, this account seems to transform politeness back into an abstract, ‘invisible’ notion. Since it is an integral part of rational, cooperative behavior, politeness becomes the norm rather than the exception; it is no longer ‘noticeable’ (Fraser, 1990: 233). Its rich dynamics seem to be lost at the expense of conflating them with the CP. That is, the CP, as originally construed by Grice (1975, 1989), is a general, fairly abstract, direction that Grice suggests conversation participants are expected to follow; this general principle is enacted and realized by its four attendant conversational maxims (1989: 27-27, 31-37). To simply state that to be polite is “a hallmark of abiding by the CP” (Fraser, 1990: 233) without invoking the conversational maxims and other interactional forces, inevitably obscures the fact that politeness is an interactional activity-one that signifies what lies underneath the surface ‘sound bites’ (for a similar criticism see also Watts, 1992: 46).

As politeness blurs into the CP, the concept of face disappears. But without such a concept, it is difficult, due to a lack of an active point of orientation, to address issues of Chinese politeness (Km&) and to uncover the dynamics of micinzi and licin. As a public image, face becomes the focal point upon which social interaction in the Chinese context is centered. The concept of the CC, however, only deals with rights and obligations of conversation participants with respect to each other, not with respect to society; it says nothing about social sanctions and an individual’s role and place in society. Therefore, the conversational-contract treatment of politeness seems to fall short of ac- counting for the complex significations of face and politeness in the Chinese and Japanese context.

My short excursion into the notion of Japanese face, and my brief critique of the conversational-contract perspective on politeness, are meant to reinforce the argument that any study of politeness that focuses on nonlocal significance must consider, for better or for worse, what is indigenous to Chinese and Japanese face. Attempts to turn face as a public image into a


‘faceless’ norm (e.g., as part of the CP) risk losing an important signifying force.

5. Toward an explanation

Although she challenges Brown and Levinson’s claim that the concepts of negative and positive face are universally valid, Matsumoto endorses their overall strategy of defining face as “one’s socially given self-image” (1988: 423). In this section, I want to move beyond her endorsement, to suggest an alternative construct that I believe can incorporate the cultural variations that have so far been uncovered concerning the concept of face.

As I have argued in the two preceding sections, face in the Chinese and Japanese context constitutes a publicly negotiated image. Whether this image revolves around a recognition by others of one’s desire for social prestige, reputation, or sanction, or it hinges upon a mandatory acknowledgement of one’s role and status in relation to others in any given interaction, its social characteristic remains prominent and constant. Such a characteristic undoubtedly casts doubt on the universal claim that Brown and Levinson have ascribed to their conceptualization of face.

While they recognize that the notion of face is subject to cultural elaboration, Brown and Levinson maintain that its two basic constituents are universal (1987: 13). For them, cultural variability only determines how polite behavior is to be evaluated, whether it is essentially positive- politeness oriented or negative-politeness oriented (or a combination of both). Cultural variability, they argue, does not affect their posited positive and negative face. Seen in our current context, this position is not quite tenable any more.

If one looks for the metaphorical ‘deep structures’ from which these different surface representations of face are possibly derived, it should be clear by now that the Chinese and Japanese concept of face, and Brown and Levinson’s characterization of face, are informed, respectively, by two different underlying forces. The first may be regarded as a centripetal force, as Chinese and Japanese face gravitates toward social recognition and hierarchical interpendence. The second may be regarded as a centrifugal force, because Anglo-American face spirals outward from individual desires or wants, and sees the self as the initiating agent. These two divergent forces represent two different face orientations, and these two face orientations, I wish to argue, signify many of our interactional behaviors.

In order to account for these two apparently opposing forces, I suggest that we develop a different interactional construct, which I call the relative face orientation. The relative face orientation may be defined as:


an underlying direction of face that emulates, though never completely attaining, one of two interactional ideals that may be salient in a given speech community: the ideal social identity, or the ideal individual autonomy. The specific content of face in a given speech community is determined by one of these two interactional ideals sanctioned by the members of the community.

Let me be more specific about this construct. The relative face orientation is not meant to be an abstract construct, to be conflated with the CP. Rather, it is situational, and it can only be “located in the flow of events in the encounter” (Goffman, 1967: 7). The ‘ideal social identity’ culminates in a total communion or a “consubstantiality” with others (Burke, 1969: 21); it is an identity that almost resembles a version of secular nirwina. Such an ideal motivates members of the community to associate themselves with others and to cultivate a sense of homogeneity. On the other hand, the ‘ideal individual autonomy’ marks off a separate and an almost inviolable space, within which the individual can preserve and celebrate his or her freedom of action without fear of becoming an outsider.

The ideal social identity and the ideal individual autonomy, in a way, correspond to two different views of the self: an “interdependent view of the self’ and an “independent view of the self’ (Markus and Kitayama, 1991: 224). The interdependent view construes the self as “part of an encompassing social relationship”, in which behavior is determined and organized by “what the actor perceives to be the thoughts, feelings, and actions of others in the relationship” (Markus and Kitayama, 1991: 227). In contrast, the independent view sees the self as an individual whose behavior is structured and made meaningful by reference to his or her own thoughts, feelings, and actions rather than to those of others (Markus and Kitayama, 1991: 226). These two views of the self represent two of “the most general and overarching schemata of the individual’s self-system”, according to Markus and Kitayama (1991: 229-230), and entail significant cognitive, emotional, and motivational consequences for individuals who hold them. While these two construals of the self inform many of our self-relevant processes and their outcomes, the two interactional ideals that I have here posited always remain ‘unattainable’, in the sense that individual speakers are constantly in the process of pursuing one ideal or the other. That is, we are never not in the process of constructing our ‘selves’.

Further, these two ideals compete for saliency in a given speech community. Although one expects to encounter some kind of predominance of one ideal over the other in a given community, the other ‘eclipsed’ ideal does not always remain in the background, and it may, whenever appropriate, be represented, in varying degrees, in some discourse activities within the same community. However, to the extent that it is socially nurtured and sanctioned, and derived


from the specific webs of significance spun by each individual in relation to others, face is an interactional force oriented toward the ideal social identity. To the extent that it indulges itself in accommodating individual desires and wants, in expressing or asserting the internal attributes of the individual, face, as an interactional force, aspires toward the ideal individual autonomy.

The face orientation of a community that privileges group harmony over individual freedom of action will tend to emulate the ideal social identity. For example, to maintain and elevate one’s ii& means behaving in a manner that is worthy of securing the moral blessings of, and certifying one’s membership with, one’s (Chinese) community. Similarly, to give proper mutual recognition of each other’s social standing, prestige or reputation- that is, to give micinzi to each other, or to behave with wakimae (‘discernment’) -demonstrates a desire to be respected and accepted by the rest of the community. To be respected, in this context, is not to be left alone; rather, it is to be included as a reputable member of the community. An individual’s behavior becomes meaningful only in the context of the participation of others. When this happens, one’s ego sings a chorus of union with the rest of the community.

In comparison, the relative face orientation of a community that attaches great importance to the ideal individual autonomy will tend to emphasize the desire to be left alone, to be free in one’s action. Giving face to an addressee in this kind of community amounts to attending to positive face: to the addressee’s want to be approved of or to be desirable to others. However, this kind of positive face differs sharply from the concept of the ideal social identity, because it perceives the individual as the center of an interaction. This difference can be best appreciated in Brown and Levinson’s characterization of face as the individual’s wants or desires. To see face as the wants of an individual, rather than as an image that is ‘on loan’ to him or her by society, underscores an overriding need to celebrate the importance and distinctiveness of the individual; what is satisfied here, after all, is nothing but the individual’s wants.

To conclude briefly, Chinese and Japanese face are oriented toward an ideal social identity; such an orientation gives rise to a public image. In contrast, Brown and Levinson’s formulation of face is oriented toward an ideal individual autonomy; such an orientation nurtures a public self-image. By identifying these two different potential interactional ideals, the relative face orientation construct allows for cultural differences without ‘burying’ the concept of face. These two ideals vie for saliency in the actual composition of face-in the image that we wish to claim for ourselves in dyadic interaction; in the end, they afford us new insights into our own behavior and into various versions of our own cooperativenesszl

Z1 While emphasizing here the importance of the relative face orientation construct, I am not saying that other interactional factors are unimportant in shaping our discourse activities; nor are


6. An analysis

Up to now, I have largely concentrated on the concept of face and its distinctive characteristics in Chinese and Japanese. I have also proposed a ‘relative face orientation construct’ to account for the variations so far uncovered. In this section, I will analyze two Chinese discourse activities- invitation and offering - and show that these activities revolve around Chinese micinzi and litin; they convey both Chinese politeness (limbo) and the Chinese aspiration toward the ideal social identity.

First, some preliminary remarks. My goal in the following pages is to show how midnzi and h&n are projected and protected through the two discourse activities that are analyzed. To accomplish this goal, I temporarily and strategically bracket out a number of variables. For example, there may very well be differences between Chinese males and females in terms of the types of speech acts performed within these two discourse activities. Also, the participants’ educational and linguistic backgrounds (including which specific dialect they speak in addition to Mandarin) may play a role in their performance. Moreover, I have transcribed the following two discourse activities in ptnytn, the Chinese phonetic alphabet system, followed by, first, my own word-for- word translation, and second, my free translation. Since the focus of the analysis is primarily functional, I have opted for a transcription system that enhances this focus, but that also excludes some prosodic features. In this sense, the transcript is subjective, and thus limited (see Ochs, 1979: 44).

The six participants in the following two examples are mainland Chinese who are either pursuing their graduate studies or working as professionals in the United States. By analyzing their face-work in the following two sections, I am not saying that their behavior is representative of all the Chinese population. I suspect that there are variations between their behavior and that of certain other Chinese groups; these groups may include, for example, Hong Kong Chinese, Singapore Chinese, Taiwan Chinese, etc. While each of these groups deserves study in its own right, my attention in this paper is directed toward mainland Chinese who are temporarily living in the United States. The question I am focusing on here is whether they have retained or forfeited their indigenous face-work.

While being aware of the above-mentioned limitations, I do intend to suggest that the link between micinzi and lia’n and the two discourse activities investigated is a constant one; such interactional activities embody a func-

they unrelated. As a matter of fact, these factors all play an instructive role in the entire

communicative process; they may include: the social structure, the relative power, and the relative ranking of the maxims. Clearly, it is beyond the focus of this essay to discuss them here. For more on this subject, see Mao (1991: 79-84).


tional characteristic and a face orientation that can be found in many other Chinese discourse activities. In this sense, I hope my study invites further investigations of how Chinese face is manifested in everyday discourse, and of how different situational variables can add new dimensions to the manifesta- tion of Chinese face.

6.1. A pre-dinner activity: Invitation

The first example that I will discuss is an invitational activity that takes place among three mainland Chinese. Y, a female, invites L-one of her former fellow graduate students at a mid-western state university, who is also a close friend-to have dinner with her family at her apartment. Y has just come back from New York City, where she works. G, Y’s husband, is the third participant in the conversation. They all converse in Mandarin, and the English translations are mine.

(1) Y: h&i, Hsigo L, zhige xingqiliti ni ht ni xilnsheng dAo Hey, Hsiao L, this Saturday you with your husband arrive wbmen ji% 1% chifin a. wd zhinghgo our house come eat rice (assertive marker). I just htiilhi, wdmen dijil pkngpitng t6u. come back, we together meet meet heads. ‘Hey, Hisao L, how about you and your husband coming to have dinner with us this coming Saturday. Now that I am back home, it will be fun to see you guys.’

(2) L: biC k+qi le.22 ni zhiybu liangge xingqi de No polite You only have two weeks (gen. marker) . . . - Jtaqt, yiding ydu h&duo shiqing ydo zu& vacation, certainly have many things want zu6. ‘Don’t be polite. 23 Your stay here is only for a couple of weeks, and I am sure you have a lot to do with your family’.

(3) Y: chti le xitixi yiw$i, wd rnki shbnme shiqing ydo zu6. Except rest excluding, I not what things want do. nimen 1Si ma, y&J m&i qit5 rCn.

You come (assertive marker), additionally no other people. ‘Except resting, I really have nothing else to do. Why don’t you come, and there aren’t any other people.’

22 Le is a Chinese particle that encodes tense, mood, or attitude in an utterance; it tends to be in word-final position. Such a particle adds emotional emphasis to a given utterance. Other particles in this example and the second example include ba, mu, and de, and they serve similar functions. 23 This kind of remark, translated directly from Chinese, can sound strange and hostile to Western ears. This is quite analogous to remarks like “You are just being too polite”-another

Chinese clichC, only in English ‘clothing’.


(4) L: zheci jiu bie mafan le, zheyang tai hua shijian le. This time just not bother, this way too take time.

‘Please don’t bother this time; it takes too much time.’ (5) Y: yidian bu hua shijian, chi dun bianfan ma.

One bit not take time, eat a casual dinner.

‘Not at all, it is only potluck.’ (6) L: women haishi 1% tantan hao le, buyao chifan le.

We still come chat chat good, no need eat dinner. ‘Why don’t we come and chat, but no dinner really.’

(7) Y: I&i le zenme keyi bu chifan

come (condition marker) how permit not eat dinner

ne! (assertive marker). ‘If you come, you should have dinner with us!’

(8) G: hao le, bit: zai keqi le! zhtshi hen suibian All right, not again polite! This is very casual

de. women jiu xiang ju yi jti,

(assertive marker). We just want gather one gather, kankandajia. nimen yiding yao lai de.

see see you all. You must want come. ‘Stop being polite any more, please! It’s a very casual dinner. We just want to get together and see you guys. You must come.’

(9) L: nimen tai keqi le, Iaoshi qing women chifan. You too polite, always invite us eat dinner.

‘You are being too polite; you always invite us to eat with you.’ (10) Y: bie xiashuo le. jiu zheyang ding le.

Not nonsense talk. Just this way settled. ‘That is not true at all. OK, it is agreed then.’

(11) L: hao ba, na women jiu lai. yao women

Good (agreement marker), then we just come. Want us

dai dian shenme lai ma? bring bit what come (question marker)? ‘OK, we will come, but do you want us to bring some food along?’

(12) Y: buyao dai, yidian ye btiyao dai.

No need bring, one bit also no need bring. ‘No, nothing. Bring nothing.’

(13) L: hao ba, women zheci jiu quan dou ting ni

Good, we this time just completely all listen you

de le (agreement and completion markers). ‘OK, we will do whatever you say this time.’

(14) Y: (She then asks L how to prepare one dish.)

L. R. Mao i ‘Face’ revisited and renewed 417

As I have demonstrated elsewhere (see Mao, 1991), Chinese invitational activity is a highly structured interaction. Normally, after being invited to a dinner party, a Chinese 24 invitee has a few options. If the invitee cannot, or does not want to, attend the party, he or she can say ‘no’ right away, followed by an explanation, and often with a regretful facial expression. Or, an apparent excuse can be made up, to be accompanied by some kind of hedged decline.

On the other hand, even if the invitee intends to accept the invitation, it still has to be declined -often with a somewhat drawn-out tone; but the decline this time is followed not by a real explanation, but by some type of formulaic expression like ‘Don’t bother’, or ‘It is just too much of a trouble for you’, or by a comment highlighting the cost of preparing such a dinner. Such an exchange completes the initial round of a Chinese invitational activity. The invitee’s ‘negative’ response indicates willingness to continue the conversation, and prompts the inviter to initiate the second round and to intensify the show of sincerity.

L adopts this ‘negative’ option in her response. After Y invites L to have dinner with her family, L immediately declines the invitation. Instead of providing some tangible explanation for her inability to accept Y’s invitation, however, L only identifies the reason why Y should not plan this party (2). In so doing, L sets off a typical, potentially successful, Chinese invitational activity. Upon hearing L’s ‘negative’ response, Y repeats her invitation, in various forms, three more times (3, 5, and 7). and L turns down the invitation every time (4, 6, and 9); they together partake of exaggerated, ritual resonance.

By not accepting the invitation at once, and by continuing to decline for some time, L is not attending to her own negative face-her want to be left alone. Her initial formulaic decline has already ‘spilled the beans’: she does not want to be left alone. Furthermore, she is not primarily concerned about her positive face either, because her overtly repetitive, sometimes ‘abrasive’, declining acts have already become more than necessary to alleviate the potential fear of being seen as greedy for accepting the invitation too quickly and being disliked subsequently (cf. Gu, 1990: 255).

Here, I suggest, L is attending to her midnzi, to her claim to due respect and recognition in the eyes of Y the inviter, and to the status of a legitimate

24 My generalizations here and below are based on my own observations, my own experiences, and my discussions with many mainland Chinese students studying in the United States. These

generalizations have yet to be further validated. Instead of appearing to substitute my limited data for general conclusions, I take the word ‘Chinese’ in phrases like ‘Chinese students’, ‘Chinese

invitational activity’, or ‘Chinese offer’ to include only these participants and other students I

have observed in the past two years. At the same time, I do want to hypothesize that the general characteristics I am suggesting in this section are indicative of a normal Chinese invitational/ offering activity-a hypothesis that certainly needs to be tested.

478 L. R. Mao 1 %hce’ revisited and renewed

member of the community. She invokes what I call a ‘festive context’, in which the inviter and invitee are customarily expected to affirm and celebrate a sense of harmony and togetherness-a context that is an integral part of Chinese invitational activity.

Conversely, for L to accept an invitation too soon could be interpreted as having accepted it too lightly. Such an acceptance would jeopardize her own midnzi, since the Iatter is nurtured through invoking this festive invitational context, and since one is expected to go through the appropriate motions. To accept an invitation too quickly may be seen as lacking a quintessential Chineseness, a sense of humbleness. Should L accept too quickly, this could also threaten Y’s mihnzi. By forfeiting the act of valuing Y’s invitation, L would, in a way, be denying the respect and reputation that Y deserves for issuing such an invitation. In either case, either behavior has a cumulative effect on Li’s litin: an initial refusal and some subsequent give-and-take contribute to its well-being; and a quick acceptance endangers it.

From the other perspective, by keeping the invitation alive, Y is performing

face-work for her own mihnzi as well. Downplaying or deprecating the worth of her invitation (e.g. “It is a casual dinner”; “It is only a pot luck”) protects her own mihnzi. If the dinner turns out to be unsuccessful, she will not suffer a loss of her midnzi, because she has already warned her invitee, so to speak. If the dinner is better than “a casual dinner”, on the other hand, she will have reinforced her micinzi, for to claim to offer less than what one actually offers earns more respect and recognition. Downplaying the dinner also helps L protect her midnzi; that the dinner is ‘nothing special’ makes L at least feel less debt-stricken, and makes it easier for her to accept the invitation-both of which relieve the pressure on her micinzi.

In order for this type of invitational activity to be concluded successfully, the give-and-take has to be terminated, and a pragmatic closure has to be initiated. The inviter and invitee have to move beyond symbolically attending to each other’s mirinzi and licin, and they have to legitimate their respective claims to midnzi and fib in pragmatic terms. In other words, the invitee needs to relinquish the ‘negative’ posture and accept the invitation; this move enables the inviter to complete the course of action that he or she has been seeking all along to consummate. Thus, L finally accepts the invitation and offers to contribute to the dinner (11)-a move designed to solidify her mirinzi. But L’s acceptance (11) only occurs after G, Y’s husband, intercedes on Y’s behalf and reassures L that “It is a casual dinner” (8). In a way, G expedites the process of this transition from a formal recognition to a real celebration.

Theoretically, L could stretch the give-and-take beyond its useful limit; she could keep refusing the invitation by exhausting- that is, repeating over and over again-the conventional repertoire of polite expressions or ready-made situational excuses or rationales. If she should attempt this, she would risk jeopardizing the entire invitational activity. Her failure to bring about a


pragmatic closure would amount to overplaying her part as an invitee, and would obscure her desire to accept the invitation. This could lead Y either to conclude that L is overreacting, or to give up inviting altogether, either of which would damage L’s micinzi as well as Ii&n, and would strain their relationship, to say the least.

To avoid this unnecessary prolongation, and to ensure that closure is achieved in a timely fashion, a third party, if present, and whenever appropriate, will step in to accelerate the process. Thus, G, realizing that an extra push is in order, joins the conversation, and nudges L to stop tapping the linguistic repertoire of conventional excuses (8) and initiate a closure. G’s intervention assures L that no more face-work is necessary. After just one more decline (9), she accepts the invitation (11).

G’s role in helping to conclude this invitational activity resembles that of a broker who negotiates the sale of goods between two individuals, or that of a mediator in any contractual situation. Their similarity foregrounds the quasi-contractual nature of Chinese invitation/acceptance, and more im- portantly, it underscores the importance of a third party’s participation in the two individuals’ efforts to bring about the consummation of midnzi and lia'n .

By the time Y asks L how to prepare a Chinese dish that she wants to try out for the dinner party (14) both participants have cooperatively enhanced each other’s micinzi and licin, and have conducted themselves most politely (that is, yciulimdo). Each speech act feeds off every other speech act in this discourse sequence; enacted together, they enable the participants to claim a public image that emulates an ideal social identity and values the association, both ceremonial and pragmatic, with others. Such an ideal social identity is partly Chinese and partly beyond Chinese, I might add. It is Chinese in that it is closely related to micinzi and ficin and underscores a quintessential aspect of Chinese politeness; it is beyond Chinese in that it embodies a desire to pursue an ideal that transcends the Chinese cultural context and that may very well be echoed in other cultures and communities.

6.2. A post-dinner activity: Oflering the leftover

Chinese micinzi and Ii& are obviously not confined to pre-dinner activities such as invitation; they are embodied, just as expressively, in post-dinner activities. Micinzi and Ii&n are not bound by discourse types; indeed, they are primary motivating forces for many other types of Chinese discourse activities as well. In this subsection, I will discuss a post-dinner activity in which a guest offers her leftover noodles to her host. In this discussion, I will further show how Chinese mibnzi and litin are negotiated, attended to, and reinforced in ways that are both similar to, and different from, the invitational discourse activity analyzed above.


The offering activity in question takes place shortly after a dinner party, and there are two principal participants involved. X-a female mainland Chinese student at a mid-western state university-and her family have just had dinner with the W’s, another mainland Chinese couple studying at the

same university. The dinner was at the W’s apartment. During the dinner, the W’s found the noodles that X had brought along particularly palatable, and asked for her recipe. Shortly after the dinner, X noticed that there were still quite a few noodles left, and she decided to offer some to the W’s. The following transcript records this offering activity, which is initiated by X, and addressed to Mrs. W:

(15) X: z&r me, hai you zhemeduo miantiao liu zhe. What, still have these many noodles left (state marker). nimen na dian qd ba.

You take some go. ‘Look, there are still so many noodles left. Why don’t you take

some.’ (16) Mrs W: bubi le. nimen liu zhe ziji chi ba.

No necessity. You leave yourselves eat. ‘It is not necessary. You can save them for yourselves.’

(17) X: zhemeduo women ye chi bh diao! These many we also eat not complete! ‘There are so many left; we cannot finish them all!’

(18) Mrs W: zhe bu dui a, chi le hii yao na. This not right, eat still want take.

‘This is not right; we’ve already had a lot, and now we are going to take more.’

(19) X: bit keqi le. jiran hao chi, jiu liu yidian ma. zhe zhong

No polite. Since good eat, then leave a little. This kind miantiao bu mashing chi diao ye jiu bu hao chi le.

noodles not at once eat complete also then not good eat. ‘Don’t be polite. Since they taste good, why not take some. This kind of noodles cannot stay too long, or they become tasteless.’

(20) Mrs W: nh women jiu bu keqi le (overlapping with (21))

Then we then not polite ‘Then, we will stop being polite.’

(21) Mr W: hao, nd women jiu na yidian ba. Good, then we then take a little. ‘OK, we will take some then.’

(22) X: duo na yidian, nimen bu na women ye chi bu diao.

Many take a little, you not take we also eat not complete. ‘Take more. If you do not take more, we cannot eat them all.’ (Mr Wang begins to scoop the noodles into his bowl.)

L. R. Mao I ‘Face’ revisired and renewed 481

(23) Mrs W: ni zhEnshi tai keqi le. you really too polite. ‘You are really being too polite.’

(24) X: duo na yidian ma (addressing and gesturing to Mr W) Many take a little ‘Take more.’

As an illocutionary act, offering, like inviting, is a commissive, whose point is “to commit the speaker (again in varying degree) to some future course of action” (Searle, 1979: 14). In making an offer, one commits oneself to providing or giving away whatever is offered. At the same time, one also directs the other party to do something, to take up the offer. In this sense, an offer is also a directive- an attempt “by the speaker to get the hearer to do something” (Searle, 1979: 13). Because of these cooperative characteristics, Hancher calls an offer a “commissive directive” (1979: 13).

In the transcript, X performs such a commissive directive (15): she offers Mrs. W the noodles, both committing herself to a course of future action (providing the noodles if Mrs. W agrees to take some) and trying to direct Mrs. W’s course of future action (to take some noodles). But there is far more here than meets the eye. The entire offering activity moves beyond committing and directing; it comprises a series of speech acts aimed toward enabling the participants to claim and sustain each other’s midnzi and lib and to be most efficiently polite to each other.

Upon hearing X’s offer (15), Mrs. W declines it right away (16)- a move that is highly expected if her mihzi is to be properly claimed. Initially declining an offer, in the Chinese context, tends to reflect positively upon the midnzi of the individual to whom the offer has been made. On the other hand, however, Mrs. W avoids mentioning directly why she cannot accept X’s offer; this signals to X that her offer is likely to be accepted if she can enhance Mrs. W’s mirinzi by sustaining and intensifying her offering act. In so far as X does this, she also performs face-work for her own midnzi, since to persist in showing one’s generosity increases one’s micinzi, and has salutary effects on one’s libn in the long run.

Thus, X continues to offer. This time, X tries to convince Mrs. W that it would be a great help and favor on her part if she would take the noodles, or they would otherwise be wasted (17 and 19). By categorizing her offer as a request, X ‘devalues’ it-an act that reinforces her own micinzi and pays respect to Mrs. W’s claim to mihzi. X’s persistence (which would perhaps be regarded as an imposition by an American counterpart) becomes a tour de force for being micinzi-sensitive and for being polite in Chinese (jciulimcio).

Cued by X’s persistence, Mrs. W declines the offer one more time, trying to symbolically outdo the reason provided by X for accepting the offer (18), and thus securing her own mirinzi. Following (19), Mrs. W accepts the offer (20),


and is endorsed by her husband (21). After this apparent closure, Mrs. W ‘replenishes’ X’s mihnzi by performing another conventional act of politeness in such a context: she attributes all the ongoing negotiations to X’s being too polite (23). Thus, Mrs. W demonstrates her recognition of, and respect for, X’s mihnzi, and in turn, elevates her own mitinzi as well.

It should be clear that this offering activity is quite analogous to the invitational activity discussed earlier. For one thing, both are centered upon Chinese micinzi and liLin, and both signify what it means to be polite (vduli- mdo) in Chinese. In addition, both have a similar structure, which roughly consists of an initial decline, a medial sequence of give-and-take, and a closing acceptance. On the other hand, this offering activity has its own characteristics. First, there is a greater effort on X’s part to deprecate her offer to Mrs. W by turning it into a request for help in getting rid of the noodles before they become foul. Second, this offering activity is, in comparison, much less elaborate than the invitational activity discussed earlier. It does not involve a third party stepping in and urging Mrs. W to terminate her face-work. It contains only two declining acts (16 and 18) as opposed to four declining acts (2, 4, 6, and 9) and one more intervening act from a third party (8) in the invitational activity.

These two characteristics provide a new perspective on the nature of Chinese offering activity, and on the relationship between Chinese face, politeness, and individual declining (‘negative’) speech acts. By offering actual

material goods to Mrs. W and asking her to take them on the spot, X presents a challenge to Mrs. W’s mihnzi, a challenge that is made all the more poignant by a sense of immediacy and presence. In other words, Mrs. W has to decide, here and now, whether or not to accept the offer and take the goods at the same time; there is literally no temporal or spatial gap between accepting the offer and taking the goods. To lighten what looks like a double burden placed

upon Mrs. W, it is necessary for X to devalue the offer as much as possible, and to turn it into a request -no matter how ostensible. This way, X both minimizes the challenge inherent in her offer and acknowledges Mrs. W’s right to her mihnzi, and /i&n. Since the offer now becomes a request (19) Mrs. W is able to feel safe to accept it without ‘overextending’ her declining acts. To put it differently, there is less of a need to go all the way to safeguard her midnzi. Hence, there are fewer declining utterances on Mrs. W’s part.

While Chinese face and politeness are embedded in, and projected through, discourse activities, it does not seem to be the case that the more one performs declining or ‘negative’ speech acts, the more ‘face-effective’ one becomes. Although Mrs. W only performs two declining acts, in comparison with the four performed by L in the invitational activity, she just as effectively claims

her midnzi and helps to ensure the well-being of her En-since she shows her proper concern for X’s micinzi and helps X enhance her long-term licin. That Mrs. W is ready to accept the offer and ‘take X’s word for it’ only lends


confidence and credibility to X’s midnzi, and ultimately, to her own; it ensures a speedy, successful closure of the activity. In addition, Mrs. W’s acceptance does not seem to foreclose the possibility of further mutually reinforcing each other’s midnzi and lidn, as is seen in (23) and (24).

On the other hand, if Mrs. W were reluctant to terminate her declining performance and reluctant to interpret X’s offer as a request, she would not only unnecessarily prolong the activity, but also potentially disrupt the equilibrium of both her own and X’s midnzi, and possibly, lib. Her reluctance would indicate that she is not willing to render the same kind of respect and trust to X’s micinzi as X does to hers, thus giving rise to an interactional imbalance. Most likely, it would also have an uncertain impact on X’s firin, as she might begin to wonder whether or not Mrs. W’s reluctance in any way implies the judgment of their shared community.

While these subtle differences do exist between the two discourse activities that I have just analyzed, one thing remains in place. Simply put, these two discourse activities show how these Chinese participants converge toward a public image that epitomizes Chinese politeness, and that resembles-though can never be identical with-an ideal social identity.

7. Summary

Brown and Levinson’s proposed face-saving model, with its two specific constituents (negative and positive face), undoubtedly foregrounds the significance of face as an interactional force shaping the things that we do with words. It enables us to see how we resort to different kinds of linguistic strategies to counteract the threats to face that our speech acts may entail. However, Brown and Levinson’s claim to the universality of their concept of face has been shown here to be unjustified. 2s As I have tried to demonstrate in this essay, Chinese micinzi and ZGn differ distinctively from Brown and Levinson’s characterization of negative and positive face. The social and moral connotations evidenced in midnzi and litin lie well beyond the semantic boundary marked by negative and positive face. Similarly, the Japanese concept of face seems to differ noticeably from Brown and Levinson’s conceptualization, suggesting that their model may be nonapplicable to Japanese interaction as well. These cultural variations in concepts of face seem to warrant positing an alternative construct and moving beyond characterizing face as consisting specifically of negative and positive face. I have, therefore, proposed the relative face orientation construct. This construct is

25 Janney and Arndt (1993) suggest that a helpful beginning in our future empirical comparative politeness research is to start viewing Brown and Levinson’s theory as one anchored within a specifically Anglo-Western cultural context.


based on the assumption that face is a public image that every individual member wishes to claim for him- or herself, and it suggests that such an image embodies an underlying direction that either emulates an ideal social identity or aspires toward an ideal individual autonomy. It is this kind of direction

that in turn anticipates and shapes the specific content of face in a given community.

The two discourse activities discussed in section 6 illustrate a face orientation that favors an ideal social image and that informs Chinese rnicinzi and En. In order to claim and protect their mihnzi and licin, these participants must perform face-work that may deviate from - though temporarily - Grice’s conversational maxims, and results in sequences of speech acts that resemble interpersonal ‘tugs of war.’ The speaker’s insistence and humbleness, and the addressee’s reluctance, both appropriately enacted, reinforce both participants’ midnzi and Ii& and make each polite in the eyes of the other. While they depart from Brown and Levinson’s negative and positive face, these participants succeed in fulfilling their communicative objectives and in claim-

ing a public image that may be found in other cultures as well. Their success, I hope, renews our faith in the importance of face as a public image that we wish to claim for ourselves in interaction.

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Beyond politeness theory : 'Face' revisited and renewed

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