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    Politeness theory

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    Constituting Face in Conversation

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    German
    Politeness theory

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Bee Constituting Face in Conversation: An Alternative to Brown & Levinson’s Politeness Theory Robert B. Arundale Department of Communication University of Alaska Fairbanks, AK 99775-5680 Phone: +907-474-6799 Email: firba@uaf.edu Presented at the 90th Conference of the National Communication Association Chicago, IL November 2004 ABSTRACT: Brown & Levinson's (1987) theory remains the most widely employed explanation of politeness, despite numerous critiques and suggestions for revision. Eschewing revision, this paper outlines a new theory that is an alternative to Brown & Levinson’s and that is responsive to critiques, including the authors’ own reservations. Brown & Levinson note clearly that “improved conceptualizations of politeness” will require replacing the model of language use they employed with a model that accounts for the emergent properties of human interaction. Face Constituting Theory heeds their critique in explaining facework as interactionally achieved in ordinary conversation. Brown & Levinson's theory explains face maintenance as the balancing of face threat by face redress, but it does not explain how face is created, how it is maintained in the absence of threat, how it is threatened as in rudeness, or how it is supported as in caring. Face Constituting Theory re-defines face as a dialectic of connection (positive face) and separation (negative face), and provides a conceptualization of face threat (as well as face support) that permits an integrated explanation of the full scope of facework from outright aggravation, through maintenance, to outright enhancement, In this new theory, favework is the result neither of a strategic intention nor of a personal want to maintain public self-image. Instead, face is conceptualized as interactionally achieved in talk, While threat and support are conceptualized as participant evaluations of face as it is conjointly co-constituted in conversation. Examining one instance of talk-in-interaction makes evident how the explanations of facework provided by Face Constituting Theory move beyond those provided by Brown & Levinson’s politeness theory. Constituting Face in Conversatio ‘An Alternative to Brown & Levinson’s Politeness Theory In 1978 Brown & Levinson developed a theory of politeness to explain why they had found striking parallels in polite language use across very different languages and cultures. They argued that the commonalities arise because in being polite people are universally engaged in facework: in shaping utterances that redress threat to one’s own or to another's face. Their central insight that polite usage involves facework provided a compelling explanation for a diverse set of observations, and their theory of politeness has had a significant impact across the diverse literatures concemed with language use. Over the ensuing twenty-five years scholars have repeatedly acknowledged politeness theory's significance in research on language use, while at the same time pointing out important weaknesses. Thorough reconsideration of Brown & Levinson’s contribution is needed and is underway, Watts (2003) argues, for example, that contrary to the presumption of many researchers, “politeness” is not equivalent to “facework” because ‘hile all human interaction involves facework, only some interaction involves politeness, Watts develops a new conceptualization of linguistic politeness. In contrast, this article outlines a new theory of facework in everyday conversation that encompasses Brown & Levinson’s insight, that addresses the numerous critiques, and that explains facework: phenomena beyond those addressed by politeness theory. Part | considers a number of reservations about politeness theory, both new and old, that define issues to be addressed in the new theory of facework. Pivotal among these critiques is Brown & Levinson’s (1987) own argument that developing an improved theory of politeness conceived as facework requires replacing the model of language use ‘underlying their theory with a new model accounting for the emergent properties of language use “which transcend the characteristics of the individuals that jointly produce it” (45). Brown & Levinson’s critique warrants one of two new conceptualizations central to the new theory: a new model of language use, as outlined in Part 2. Other key reservations regarding Brown & Levinson's conceptualization of face and its cultural generality, consistency in their definition of face threat, and limitations in their account of facework warrant a new concept of face, and hence of positive and negative face, as outlined in Part 3. ‘These new conceptualizations of language use and of face are radical departures from the parallel concepts in politeness theory, obviating its extension or revision. Part 4 outlines Face Constituting Theory, a new theory of facework that addresses the question “How do participants achieve face in everyday conversation?” Part 5 applies both politeness theory and Face Constituting Theory to an instance of ordinary talk, the comparison forming one basis for examining the new theory’s alternative explanation of facework in Part 6. Because it is a new theory, not a revision, Face Constituting Theory moves beyond politeness theory to provide an integrated explanation for how face is created, maintained, threatened, and supported in conversation, or in short, for the full scope of human facework. e 1: Reservations about Brown & Levinson’s Theory of Politeness as Facework In developing their central insight that polite language use involves facework, Brown & Levinson (1987, hereafter B&L) introduced a version of Goffman’s (1955) concept of “face.” “Face” is the public self-image social actors claim for themselves, that image involving the actor’s concerns or wants for association (having one’s wants appreciated, or positive face) or for dissociation (having one’s actions unimpeded, or negative face). Face is acknowledged mutually and attended to by all participants, and becomes relevant in interaction at the point a threatening utterance diminishes a participant's face, Politeness or face maintenance occurs when the threatening utterance also incorporates a redress strategy. ‘The presence of the strategy is a departure from Grice’s norms for rational, efficient utterances, and triggers @ conversational implicature of face support, which serves to balance the threat to face. Over the past twenty-five years, critics have scrutinized many aspects of politeness theory (hereafter PT; see Brown 2001), so that even a partial review is beyond the scope of this paper. It must suffice to consider briefly four areas of reservations that indicate issues PT does not address and that justify constructing a new theory of facowork: reservations regarding language use, face, face threat, and facework. Language use: B&L's (1987) critique of the model of language use underlying PT is the most central reservation because replacing that model is basic to future development of the theory. This critique is seldom acknowledged, and until now unaddressed, Specifically, PT is based firmly in Grice’s (1989) theories of meaning and of conversational implicature, In their 1978 presentation of the theory, B&L note that their “analysis must be found wanting, dominated as it is by the act-by-act analysis of contemporary philosophy and linguistics” (1978: 89, 1987: 84), such analyses of utterances as self-contained, separable units or actions having been “ably criticized” by conversation analysts (1987: 232). They reiterate this critique in their introduction to the 1987 reissue, and also characterize the model of language use they believe essential to any new theory of politeness: Social interaction is remarkable for its emergent properties which transcend the characteristics of the individuals that jointly produce it; this, emergent character is not something for which our current theoretical models are well equipped. Workers in artificial intelligence have already detected a paradigm clash between ‘cognitivism’ and ‘interactionism’, and noted the failure of the former paradigm to account for interactional organization (see ... Suchman [1987]); our own account suffers from the same dose of ‘cognitivism’, Work on interaction as a system thus remains a fundamental research priority, and the area from which improved conceptualizations of politeness are most likely to emerge. (48) Because the “current theoretical models” to which B&L (1987) refer include both Grice’s and Searle’s conceptualizations of language use, this apparently casual observation is an incisive critique of the models of language use employed in language pragmatics as a whole, including PT (see Arundale 2005: 50-52). These models are problematic because they assume that language use in particular, and human communication in general, are matters of one person’s encoding their meanings for others to recover through decoding. ‘hat is, communication reduces to an activity of monadic individuals who encode and decode self-contained verbal (and non-verbal) unit acts in the presence of other wholly independent or monadic individuals. Such models continue to be employed, even in view of decades of substantive critiques within the disciplines of human communication, linguistics, psychology, and sociology (Arundale & Good 2002), Both PT's cognitivism and its focus on unit acts are entailments of the encoding/decoding model of communication that underlies Grice’s theories (Arundale 1991). Arundale (1999: 121-126, also Arundale and Good 2002) argues that creating new models of language use that explain emergence as B&L (1987) specify requires conceptualizing communication as the dyadic or conjoint co-constituting of meanings and actions in on-going address and response between wholly interdependent language users. B&L acknowledge that their explanation of the structuring of self-contained, separable, polite unit acts involving face threat needs to be supplemented with insights drawn from research in conversation analysis. But conversation analysis conceptualizes communication as the interactional achievement of meaning and action, hence ad hoc use of such insights to complement a theory that conceptualizes communication as monadic encoding and decoding can provide only ad hoc descriptions of facework, not principled explanations. PT cannot be revised or extended to incorporate such insights because itis incommensurate with interactionism, That is, given its fundamental commitment to an encoding/decoding model of communication, itis incompatible with a conceptualization of language use as an emergent, dyadic phenomenon, conjointly co-constituted in communication. A new theory of facework requires a new model of language use in communication that addresses B&AL’s key critique. Face: B&L's (1987) conceptualization of face bas drawn considerable attention on both theoretical and empirical grounds. Building on Goffiman’s (1955) concept, B&L (1987: 62). define “face as wants,” noting that “It would have been possible to treat the respect for face as norms or values subscribed to by members of a society (as perhaps most anthropologists would assume), Instead, we treat the aspects of face as basic wants, which every member knows every other member desires, and which in general it is in the interests of every member to partially satisfy.” On this basis, they define “negative face” as “the want of every ‘competent adult member’ that his [sic] actions be unimpeded by others,” and “positive face” as “the want of every member that his [sic] wants be desirable to at least some others.” ‘Two issues are problematic here: the interpretation of face es wants, and the cultural generality of the definitions both of face and of positive and negative face. First, B&L's (1987) choice of terms has led many to interpret face “wants” as psychological "needs." That interpretation is consistent with the Euro-American psychological tradition that assumes that the actions of individuals are effects caused by the presence of specific internal needs or drives, which has lead to a common interpretation of face as a motivation for certain identifiable patterns in language use. As Bavelas (1991) argues, the view of language use as caused by internal states is problematic, theoretically because it is difficult to adequately specify the cause-effect Jinks, and empirically because it is hard to avoid circularity in indexing internal states. Brown (personal communication, Tune 1993) has specifically rejected interpretations of positive and negative face wants as needs, arguing that seeing them as such is “to reify the notion of face-wants and to psychologize it,” and that face wants are “an interactionally relevant phenomenon, not a matter of our deepest personality and identity construction." More specifically, “face” for B&CL is "an abstract notion of public seli- image which people want to be interactionally recognized," with public self-image being “that part of self-image which is invoked interactionally and requires the input of others to maintain.” Accordingly, "face is indisputably a socially and interactionally created thing" (cf. Brown, 2001: 11623). A new theory of facework requires a new concept of face that avoids the problems arising in treating face as wants, In addition, given that PT’ focuses on maintaining face that is already presumed to exist, a new theory of facework must also address how face is interactionally created, as Brown suggests. Second, B&L (1987) argue on the basis of evidence drawn from three quite different languages and cultures that politeness, seen as the structuring of utterances to redress face threat, is a cultural universal. Among researchers who have studied different cultural groups, there are a number who argue that B&L’s definition of the key concept of face is not sufficiently culture-general, e.g., Fitch & Sanders (1994), Ide (1989), Matsumoto (1988, 1989), Scollon & Scollon (1994). B&L (1987: 14-15) acknowledge that their treatment of face emphasizes its personal, individual aspects, and scholars have found that treatment problematic, as for example in applying it to non-Western cultural _gtoups who view persons as inseparable from webs of obligations arising in relationships, More specifically, in defining positive face as a want to be appreciated and negative face as a want to be unimpeded, B&L seem to have pointed to cultural universals, but to have described them in terms that make them difficult to reconcile with the fall range of culture-specific elaborations of face that have become evident in research. Arundale (forthcoming) examines these complex issues more fully, but a new theory of facework will require conceptualizations of face, as well as of positive and negative face, that will accommodate quite varied culture-specific construals. Face threat: Compared to the widespread concern with face, PT’s conceptualization of face threat has received relatively little attention. B&L (1987) describe face threat variously as an intrinsic meaning of a speech act (24, 65fi) and as an intention of a speaker (233). Face threat cannot be intrinsic in a speech act any more than a meaning can be transmitted by a word, which is not at all (see Arundale 1999; 121- 122). Speakers may consciously intend to threaten, or have Gricean meaning-intentions that involve threat, but B&L do not use such interpretations other than in passing, However, central to PTs framework for assessing the “weight” or importance of a face threatening act is their “R” factor, or the “culturally and situationally defined ranking of impositions by the degree to which they are considered to interfere with an agent’s wants” (77). Selecting the applicable ranking in any given situation may be complex, but social actors within a given culture are seen as consistently able to determine such rankings (76ff, 24321), which implies that there are cultural norms for levels of threat to face that each individual learns as part of his/her socialization, ‘Conceptualizing face threat in terms of norms is at odds both with B&L’s (1987) decision to avoid treating “respect for face as norms or values subsoribed to by members of a society” (62), and with their argument that norms “will not produce the flexible and indefinitely productive strategy usage” (86) they describe. More specifically, and quite apart from power (P) and social distance (D) considerations, if a norm-based definition fails to account for variability in respecting face, itis also unlikely to account for variation in what constitutes a threat or imposition.- In addition, although B&L provide an extensive catalog of strategies for redressing or supporting face, they do not define “support” for face. A new theory of facework requires clear and consistent conceptualizations of both threat and support. Facework: PT’s explanation for facework is limited entirely to maintaining face in the presence of face threat, B&L (1987: 236) assume that when a face threatening action occurs a “balance principle” applies in which the face “debt” created by the threat must be balanced by “redress” in the form of attention to face. This “balancing” mode of maintaining face is common, but describing face maintenance in terms of restoring balance suggests another mode of maintaining face: one that involves not balancing threat with redress, but rather not creating any imbalance at all, or in other words, maintaining face without altering it, This “stasis” mode of maintaining face is almost certainly more common than balancing, but remains unexamined because it simply cannot be conceptualized within PT. B&L limit their concer to explaining face maintenance by balancing, but their acknowledgment (97, 191) that unredressed threat to face does occur opens another issue, Participants use language to accomplish outright face threat or aggravation, and to achieve outright face support or enhancement, as well. These seemingly natural extensions of the concepts of face threat and face support need to be addressed in a new theory of facework, along with both modes of face maintenance. B&L (1987: 4) indicate that in developing PT, the “only essential presumption” they drew from Grice was “that there is a working assumption by conversationalists of the rational and efficient nature of talk,” such talk being defined by Grice’s maxims (271). The presence of a face redress strategy in an otherwise efficient, face threatening utterance is just such adeviation. For B&L, linguistic politeness “is communicated precisely by that deviation” (95), and the recipient “finds in considerations of politeness reasons for the speaker’s apparent irrationality or inefficiency” (4). Within PT, then, politeness is accomplished always and only by means of the conversational implicatures triggered by such deviations: politeness is not inherent in or carried by linguistic markers (see 1987: 5, 22, 55, 95, 271, Brown 2001). Conversational implicatures are one form of “nonce” interpreting of utterances—specialized, one-time interpreting dependent on the unique context ofan utterance. However, following Grice (1989) and Garfinkel (1967, see Heritage 1984), nonce interpreting presumes and indeed takes place against the background of “default” interpreting of utterances—non-specialized, general interpreting apart from specific contextual factors (Levinson 2000). Although PT links face redress to nonce interpreting, there is no a priori reason to expect that facework in general should be so restricted. The direct implication for developing a new theory of facework is that there should exist means of being polite, and more generally, means of attending to face, ‘whose accomplishment involves default interpreting. B&L do not deny this possibility, ut the implication is not apparent within PT because it is framed entirely in terms of nonce interpreting. Addressing these latter reservations regarding face threat and facework requires developing 2 new concept of face, in turn which rests on developing a new model of language use in human communication. Part 2 presents the Conjoint Co-constituting Model of Communication, which is basic to conceptualizing face as connectedness and separateness in relationships in Part 3. Part 4 uses both new conceptualizations to develop Face Constituting Theory, which addresses the reservations regarding face threat and facework. 2: The Conjoint Co-constituting Model of Communication Face Constituting Theory is constructed within the framework of the Conjoint Co- constituting Model of Communication (Arundale 1999), Unlike the monadic encoding/decoding models that pervade language pragmatics, the Conjoint Co- constituting Model assumes that language use, like communication in general, is a dyadic phenomenon. Accordingly, the model's principal focus is explaining the emergence or interactional achievement’ of meaning and action, rather than the cognitive processes of production and comprehension that are involved. The Conjoint Co-constituting Model also assumes language use is sequentially organized, hence its explanations apply to conversation, not just to self-contained, separable unit acts. Both Clark (1996) and Sanders (1987) present models that address the conjoint and sequential nature of conversation, but neither explains how participants’ mutual affording and constraining of one another’s designing and interpreting of utterances generate emergent meanings and actions: meanings and actions that both participants influence, but neither controls. Theoretical Principles: The Conjoint Co-constituting Model of Communication is a theoretical model whose three theoretical principles are framed from the participant's, rather than the analyst's perspective. The principles are not injunctions, but rather formal statements that model the “the procedures and expectations in terms of which [participants] produce their own behaviour and interpret the behaviour of others” (Heritage 1984: 241). Each of the three principles is grounded in and summarizes existing findings in human communication, language pragmatics, conversation analysis, and psycholinguisties, but is constructed to explain phenomena in communication and language pragmatics, rather than in conversation analysis or psycholinguistics. In combination, the principles explain the emergence or interactional achievement of meaning and action in using language. Because they have been developed elsewhere (Arundale 1999), the principles are simply presented here, and illustrated in examining an instance of ordinary talk. The Sequential Interpreting Principle explains the recipient's evolving comprehending or interpreting of utterances in view of expectations previously invoked, as well as the integrating of current with evolving interpreting that retroactively confirms or alters that prior interpreting: Recipients interpret the utterance currently being produced using expectations for processing invoked in producing and interpreting prior utterances; they integrate this current interpreting with their evolving interpreting of the sequence of utterances; they assess their heretofore provisional interpreting of prior utterances; they invoke expectations for subsequent interpreting of the next utterance; and they ascribe this current interpreting to the producer of the uiterance as the producer's meaning or action. AS used here, “interpreting” is an individual's processing, of language constituents and non-language elements as they appear moment by moment in the stream of bebavior that is interaction. “Interpreting” includes formulating meanings, inferences, conversational actions, and turns at talk. “Interpreting” is used both as a progressive verb and somewhat unusually as a gerund to emphasize that both the process, and its momentary outcomes or products, are dynamic rather than determinate. The Sequential Interpreting Principle has two corollaries that address normal, default interpreting as the background or baseline process against which participants identify utterances that require specialized, nonce interpreting. The Recipient Design Principle explains the speaker's developing producing or designing of an utterance on the bases not only of expectations previously invoked, and of recipient interpreting the speaker seeks to engender, but also of the speaker's continual projecting of the recipient’ sequential interpreting as he/she comprehends the utterance (Sacks 1992: 438, Sacks, Scheglofi, & Jefferson 1974: 727): Speakers frame an utterance to be produced using both expectations invoked in prior producing and interpreting, and recipient meanings and actions to be engendered; they attribute to the future recipient knowledge of certain resources and procedures; they project the ‘recipient's interpreting, integrating, assessing invoking, and ascribing in formulating meanings and actions for the utterance being designed; they produce the utterance by selecting and articulating constituents; and they presume that their recipients will hold them accountable for their contribution to the conversation. Both the Sequential Interpreting Principle and the Recipient Design Principle focus on the cognitive processing involved in using language, but both make evident that such processing is linked to and dependent upon both prior and subsequent utterances in the sequence of talk. Because those prior and subsequent utterances are produced by others, those others are co-participants in one’s interpreting and designing of utterances. It is in this sense that utterances in conversation are co-constituted. The Adjacent Placement Principle is the core of the Conjoint Co-constituting Model of Communication because it links the cognitive processes of using language with the social process of communication, “communication” being defined here, in contrast to encoding/decoding views, as interaction exhibiting mutual affordance and constraint or reciprocal influence between participants (cf. Arundale 1999: 125-126, 129, Krippendorff 1970, 1984: 29). The principle is derived from Sacks’ (1992: 554, Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson 1974: 728) “fandamental ordering principle for conversation” (Heritage 1984: 261, ef. 1992: 162-163), although in formulating it Sacks did not address the processes involved in producing and comprehending: Unless the speaker indicates otherwise, recipients interpret the utterance currently being produced on the presumption that it is designed in view of the immediately prior utterance (and others that may have preceded i), and is grounds for designing the immediately subsequent utterance (and others that follow). Reciprocally, unless they indicate otherwise, speakers design the utterance currently being produced on the presumption that it will be interpreted in view of the immediately prior uterance (and others that may have preceded it), and is grounds for interpreting the immediately subsequent utterance (and others that follow).’ The Adjacent Placement Principle makes evident that one participant's placement of their current utterance adjacent to the prior utterance of another links the participants’ designing and interpreting of the current utterance with their interpreting and designing of both the prior and subsequent utterances. It is in this linking that co-constituting becomes conjoint, and that language use becomes communication. Some Everyday Talk: Ulustrating the three principles requires first examining an instance of ordinary conversation. Schegloff presents an extended analysis of the following segment of talk in two different articles (1987, 1988a: 138-139). The segment is reproduced here using the transcription conventions common in conversation analytic research, with the added indication in lines 17-20 of head movements by Mike: vertical nods, either slight (|) or vigorous (//)), and lateral shakes, again slight (— —) or vigorous (= =)? (1) Auto Discussion 1 Curt: (W"'ll) how wz the races las’night, 2 (0.8) 3 Curt: — Who w’n [th’ feature] 4 Mike [Al won, ] 5 (0.3) 6 Cur: [(who) 7 Mike: [AL ]- 8 Cur: =Aldid? 9 (0.8) 10 Curt: Dz he go out there pretty regular? 1 (5) 12 Mike: — Generally evry Saturdee. 13 (1.2) 14 Phyllis: He wins js about every Saturday too:. 15 Ryan: — Bof: Bo! 16 Cutt [He- He’s about the only regular

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