1. FACE & FACE WORK Social & Cognitive Approaches to
Based on chapter 4
Social & Cognitive Approaches to
Interpersonal Communication
Eds., Susan Fussell & Roger Kreuz

2. Positive Negative The Concept of Face
A desire for autonomy or freedom from imposition
A desire for connectedness or solidarity with others
Negative
Positive

3. Threats to Face (p.73)
Requests threaten a hearer’s negative face--Why?--please explain
Because requests impose upon a hearer
Disagreements threaten a hearer’s positive face -- explain!
Promises threaten a speaker’s negative face--explain!
Apologies threaten a speaker’s positive face--explain!

4. Face Work
Social interaction puts us in the position of maintaining one another’s face (positive and negative) and
Performing acts that threaten one another’s face
Hence, face work, or being polite

5. INDIRECTNESS Now, back to our old friend, “indirectness”
Indirectness is one way that people resolve the dilemma of maintaining face while performing acts that threaten face--
E.g., requests are often performed indirectly
Any form that reduces the imposition on the hearer functions as a negatively polite strategy
to question preconditions underlying the performance of a request

6. More on Indirectness
To perform the act on-record with positive face rituals--mechanisms that implicate solidarity with the hearer
ingroup identity markers
jokes
slang
familiar address
presumptuous optimism

7. More on Indirectness To Perform the request off-record
requests that are ambiguous and deniable

8. Disagreements & Face Work
To disagree with another person is to threaten their positive face (p. 77)
Hence, where there is controversy, people often
seek “safe” topics
hedge opinions, “I kind of think. . .”

9. Your Transcript
Examine your transcript for examples of positive and negative face work