Culture, language, & experiences do not exist in a vaccuum.
freedom and not be imposed upon by others in society. This is the idea that someone wishes to act in his/her own way without feeling pressure to change or not to be what he/she desires to be socially. A face threatening act (FTA) is an act which deliberately threatens the face needs of others.
Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Theory centers around the people’s desire to be part of “we” or a common social community. They discuss society’s need to preserve face and attempt to be polite in a manner that will not attack the faces of others around you. One can maintain polite behavior in many different ways: (1) being contextually appropriate, (2) following social and cultural norms, or (3) being socially positive by addressing face needs. They also discuss politeness superstrategies to apply when FTA’s are implemented in a situation or to simply avoid a FTA from happening. Five specific strategies talked about are Bald on Record, Positive politeness, Negative politeness, Off record, and Withhold. Bald on record is the act of not trying to minimize the face threat at hand, it may be offensive to someone if you take an issue of theirs and downplay it acting as if it weren’t a big deal. Positive and Negative Politeness are acting in ways that don’t impede on the face of others; positive means showing you value someone as to minimize threat to their positive face, and negative means not impeding on someone to minimize threat to negative face. Off record is avoiding responsibility for the FTA committed by being indirect. Lastly Withholding is simply not performing the FTA in the first place. The type of strategy adopted by someone is determined by contextual factors like the relationship you have with the person or how great of a threat the FTA is.
One’s positive face, according to Brown and Levinson, is the desire to be appreciated and liked by others. One will behave in such a fashion that will draw attention and praise to themselves from others in a desire to feel loved and wanted. One’s negative face is the desire to have
Im/Politeness
Brown & Levinson
The Theory of Politeness proposed by Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson first appeared in 1987 in their book Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. The basis of their theory revolves around the idea of “Face”. Brown and Levinson proposed that their existed two faces in everyone’s lives, a positive face and a negative face. The two (Brown and Levinson) believed that the behaviors of people in society were a manifestation of maintaining the integrity of either their “Positive” or “Negative” face.
Jonathan Culpeper
Throughout his writings, specifically History of English (2005) and Impoliteness Revisited (2003), Jonathan Culpepper addresses his thoughts on Impoliteness. He says impoliteness is a communicative strategy designed to attack face and in doing so cause social conflict and disharmony (Culpeper et al. 2003: 1546). He also states that impoliteness comes about in two ways; one being when the speaker communicates face-attack intentionally, the other being when the hearer perceives and/or constructs behavior as intentionally face-attacking (Culpeper 2005: 38). His theories derive from the idea of face established by Brown and Levinson but differ in that they address the intentional “impolite” or “rude” behaviors that people may perform whilst communicating with one another. Culpeper focuses more on context in his evaluation of im/politeness, he sees that it is too basic and constricting to say that every human behaves a certain way and that the situation dictates behavior a lot more than described in the findings of Brown and Levinson.
Strategies for Impoliteness
There is an intention on the part of the speaker to attack the face of the hearer. This is distinct from Brown and Levinson’s bald on record strategy, which is implemented for polite purposes in fairly specific circumstances, where there is little face at stake, an emergency situation, or no intention of damaging the face of the hearer.
Designed to damage the addressee’s positive face intends to (‘ignore, snub the other’, ‘exclude the other form the activity’, ‘dissociate from the other’, ‘not interested, concerned, or sympathetic’, ‘use inappropriate identity markers’, ‘use obscure or secretive language’, ‘seek disagreement’, ‘make the other person feel extremely uncomfortable (i.e. do not avoid silence, joke or use small talk)’, ‘use offensive words’, ‘call the other person names’, etc.).
Keep silent or fail to act where politeness work is expected
There is an intention on the part of the speaker to attack the face of the hearer. This is distinct from Brown and Levinson’s bald on record strategy, which is implemented for polite purposes in fairly specific circumstances, where there is little face at stake, an emergency situation, or no intention of damaging the face of the hearer.
Ting-Toomey and the Face Negotiation Theory
Face is defined as the public self-image that every adult portrays. The Face Negotiation Theory adopts the idea that people from different cultures work to maintain face in all situations. The source of conflict is based on self-management on an individual and cultural level. The Face Negotiation Theory proposes many different ideals such as: People from all cultures trying to maintain and exchange face through all communication situations; Face is a problem when identities are questioned; Cultural, individual and situational variables influence the selection of that set of face that concerns over another; Individualistic cultures prefer self oriented facework, collectivistic cultures prefer other oriented facework; Small power distance cultures prefer an “individuals are equal” type of structure, large power distance cultures prefer a hierarchical structure; Behavior is influenced by cultural discrepancies, individual, relational, and situational factors; Competence in intercultural communication is a collection of knowledge and mindfulness.
From a cultural aspect in the Face Negotiation Theory, face is a universal phenomenon. It seems that everyone is looking for respect and is in need for self-respect. Low communication centers around individual values and focuses on verbal communication (i.e. Canada, US and Australia). High communication centers on group orientations and focuses on non-verbal communication. Collective needs and goals context cultures and have longer history of their culture (i.e. Japan, South Korea and China). The Face Negotiation Theory has dissatisfaction with ‘western’ perspective with bias of individualism and conflict confrontations. It interjects a stronger ‘Asian’ perspective.
This Video provides an example of cultural miscommunication leading to a threat to face of one culture from a simple action thought meaningless by the other.
Thesis
Amongst the theories of im/politeness proposed by Brown and Levinson, Culpeper and Ting-Toomey, we believed that all three of the strategies have elements that are applicable to everyday conversation regarding the im/polite behaviors of the people communicated.
References:
[1] Brown, P. and Levinson, S. C., (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/projects/impoliteness/index.htm
Cultural Barriers to Effective Communicationhttp://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/problem/cultrbar.htm
Cross Cultural Face Negotiation
http://www.cic.sfu.ca/forum/ting-too.html
Face Concerns in Interpersonal Conflict: A Cross-Cultural Empirical Test of the Face Negotiation
John G. Oetzel and Stella Ting-Toomey
Communication Research 2003; 30; 599 DOI: 10.1177/0093650203257841http://crx.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/30/6/599
http://bit.ly/9sT16R
www.mediate.com/articles/the_four_faces_of_face.cfm
http://www.scribd.com/doc/20554112/Culpeper-Impoliteness-Revisited#scribd
Images:
Comedy and Tragedy:
http://www.unitedmask.com/masks/images/Comedy__Tragedy_Unfinished.VX2800-12JPG.JPG
Mister Rude: http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131214024651/villains/images/4/45/Mister_Rude.jpg
Losers:
Scared:
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/Pictures/web/y/q/i/scared_businessma_450.jpg
Sarcasm:
http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/f9/f9c9ebefdacb16c40f0a520fa0dedacb4d93dbedd3def60b07a34b55fa5b1cbf.jpg
Withholding:
http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Holding+in+a+fart+next+to+a+girl_652934_5039514.jpg
David Mackens, Jonathan Caesar
Wrap-Up
Upon reviewing and analyzing the three theories on social behavior provided (Brown & Levinson, Culpeper, and Ting-Toomey) we initally found ourselves searching for a definte explanation of im/politeness coming from one of the three theories. With further review, we began to accumulate more and more information from each of the three theories that we thought were valid, and in ways complimented and built off one another's main points.
First is Brown & Levinson setting the basework. They produced first the idea of face, having a positive face representing one's longing to be wanted, and having a negative face representing one's longing to be free and independent. We found that this part of the theory to be accurate but far to much was simplified. Their (Brown & Levinson) theory didn't go into any detail about impolite behaviors of humans, which we thought was vital information to leave out. Culpepers Theory about Impoliteness addressed some of the questions left out in Brown & Levinson's theory. Culpepers addresses the fact that it is human nature to be impolite with a purpose rather than on accident or without purpose as thought by Brown & Levinson. We thought his ideas to be valid, recalling times in our lives where we might have been rude or inconsiderate as part of a strategy in the context of a situation, perhaps a sporting event. Culpeper talks about context in his theory, how people communicating with know and understant words with meaning other than their literall meaning, or actions meant to interpretted a certain way. From there the question arose "What if the two parties communicating are unfamillier with each other and can't interpret the context of their words or actions in the same manner?". Cue Ting-Toomey and her Face Negotiation Theory. Ting-Toomey's theory explains that in a intercultural situation, both sides with be stubborn about maintaing their personal face. A situation like this can become dangerous for a party involve, as seen in the video above. She divides the cultures of the world into two groups, Low Communication centers and High Communication centers, the two being polar opposites.
Seeing that the Theories build off of one another, it's hard for us to discredit any of them being that without the others the other two may not have come to fruition. Each answers the questions left unanswered by the previous theory, and in doing so show that all are valid and applicable to any sort of communication.
