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13 - Face, Facework and Face-Threatening Acts

from Part II - Topics and Settings in Sociopragmatics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2021

By
Maria Sifianou  and
Angeliki Tzanne
Edited by
Michael Haugh ,
Dániel Z. Kádár  and
Marina Terkourafi
Michael Haugh
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
Dániel Z. Kádár
Affiliation:
Hungarian Research Institute for Linguistics, and Dalian University of Foreign Languages
Marina Terkourafi
Affiliation:
Leiden University
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Summary

The concept of ‘face’ has received considerable attention in im/politeness research given the powerful influence of Goffman and Brown and Levinson, in particular. In recent years, mostly due to the discursive turn, researchers have questioned the tight yoking between face and im/politeness and have sought different ways to better understand these concepts. This chapter offers a brief critical exploration of the concept of ‘face’ and its derivative concepts of ‘face-threatening acts’ and ‘facework’. Furthermore, it discusses some of the developments in the area such as the needs for finer distinctions and alternative ways of conceptualizing ‘face’, the appeal to return to the broader Goffmanian concept and the needs for distinguishing between lay and scientific constructs of face and disentangling face from im/politeness. ‘Face’ is a term which is located in sociology, as it relates to the person, to the self and to identity, whereas the derivative ‘face-threatening act’ draws heavily on pragmatics and, more specifically, on speech act theory. The related term ‘facework’ may provide a kind of link between the two. This chapter offers an overview of these interconnections and suggests possible directions in the study of ‘face’.

Keywords

faceface-threatening acts (FTA)facework(im)politeness
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics , pp. 249 - 271
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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