Intercultural Communication

1. Intercultural Communication Lecture 3 Interpersonal politeness and power

2. Face Strategies and Systems • Language is ambiguous • One way we reduce ambiguity is to make assumptions about the people we are talking to and our relationship with them • ‘Face’ • The paradox of face • Face strategies • Face systems

3. Politeness and Face • Popular Meanings • Face: mian zi, min ji, mentsu, chae myon • Concept of honour • Politeness: Being ‘nice’, following certain ‘rules’ of social conduct (‘li’_ • Popular ideas of politeness and face are usually governed by expectations about ‘scripts’ and adjacency pairs

4. Face and Politeness • Linguistic meaning • Face • the negotiated public image mutually granted each other by participants in communication • Politeness • How we signal our relationship with and feelings towards those we are communicating with in our language use

5. Is this polite? • ‘Ms. Cheung, I wonder if you could please get back to me on this matter at your earliest convenience…’

6. Is this polite?

7. Is this polite? • A: Hello. • B: Hi Rodney. Can you guess who this is?

8. Is this ‘polite’ • ‘Wow, you look awful today! Is there anything wrong? • To you best friend? • To your boss?

9. My Mother in England

10. The Paradox of Face

12. The Paradox of Face • We want people to like us • We want people to respect us • Respect and intimacy are expressed in different ways • Different groups may have different ways of expressing intimacy and respect

13. Two kinds of face • Negative face (desire for autonomy, personal space,freedom from imposition, freedom of action) • THE SHIELD • Positive face (desire for self-image to be acknowledged and approved of) • THE SPEAR • Each are addressed with specific formsof ‘facework’

14. Two kinds of face • Negative face (desire for autonomy, personal space,freedom from imposition, freedom of action) • Positive face (desire for self-image to be acknowledged and approved of) • Each are addressed with specific formsof face work

15. Two Kinds of Face Strategies • Involvement • ‘Solidarity’ • Showing ‘closeness’ or solidarity • using first name, expressing interest, claiming common point of view, using informal language

16. Two Kinds of Face Strategy • Independence • Showing ‘respect’ • using titles, not making assumptions, apologizing, using formal language

17. Independence and Involvement • In any interaction we usually use both independence and involvement strategies • The problem is deciding how and when to use these strategies • Based on • who we are talking to • why we are talking to them

18. Face Systems • Face systems are based on three different aspects of the situation • Power (+P power difference, -P no power difference) • Distance (+D distant, -D close) • Weight of Imposition (how important topic is for speakers, +W important, -W not very important) • Values exist on a scale (not absolute)

19. Deference Face System • -P, +D • symmetrical (equal) • participants see themselves as at same social level • distant • both would use mostly independence strategies

20. Solidarity Face System • -P, -D • symmetrical • close • both participants likely to use more involvement strategies

21. Hierarchical Face System • +P, +/-D • asymmetrical (unequal) • asymmetrical face strategies • higher uses more involvement • lower uses more independence

22. Deference Speaker<-----------------Independence--------------->Speaker Solidarity Speaker<--Involvement-->Speaker Hierarchical Speaker (involvement) Speaker (independence)

23. Communication problems • The calculation of the appropriate face strategies is usually based on a calculation of power • ‘When two participants differ in their assessment of face strategies it will tend to be perceived as a difference in power’

24. Conflicting Strategies/Mixed up systems • Two businessmen meeting for the first time • Mr R: (reading Mr. Wong’s business card which says Wong Hon Fai) Hi, Hon Fai. I’m Bill Richardson. My friends call me Bill. • Mr W: How do you do Mr. Richardson. • Mr. Wong thinks: That guy is acting too familiar, who does he think he is? • expects deference system, hears hierarchical system • Mr. R. thinks: This guy doesn’t want to be my friend. He’s not very nice. • expects solidarity system, hears deference system

25. Task Watch the video and discuss how participants’ choice of face strategies leads to miscommunication

26. Face and Culture • Kinship • Concept of ‘self’ • In-group/Out-group relationships • Gemeinshaft and Gesellschaft

27. Kinship • Hierarchy • Collectivistic relationships • Love and duty • Honesty and harmony

28. ‘Face’ and ‘Self’ • differences in assumptions about the ‘self’ • Individualism and collectivism • Body-Self-Person

31. Ingroup-Outgroup Relationships • ‘Nei’ and ‘Wai’ • How strong are group boundaries • How permanent are groups • Group identification

32. Gemeinshaft and Gesellshaft • Community and society • Gemeinshaft • Traditional, organic, based on kinship bonds, shared history, common traditions • Gesellshaft • Contractual, rational, instrumental, based on rules and laws

33. Chinese conceptions of face • Face not seen to belong to self alone, but also to group (family) • Politeness strategies characterized by self-denigration and respect (negative politeness (li) • Heavily encoded in the language

34. Two kinds of Chinese Face (Mao 1994) • Mianzi (prestige, reputation, either earned or ascribed) • Lian (respect for a person’s underlying moral character) • Morality defined as subordinating one’s own face wants to those of the group

35. Mianzi vs. Lian • Losing mianzi • loss of one’s reputation because of failure or misfortune • Losing lian • loss of one’s moral standing in the community • Lian more important than mianzi • Mianzi can have negative connotations (being overly concerned with self-image) • to gain mianzi at the expense of lian in the end will cost one both (Mao 1994)

36. Mianzi vs. Lian • Possible to lose Mianzi but gain lian • Example: J.J. Chan • Courageous Disc-Jockey Give AIDS Campaign a Friendly Spin • A 25-year old local disc-jockey suffering from AIDS is sharing his story to help educate the public about the disease. • J J Chan’s family is proof that AIDS is no hindrance to a happy home life, even after its youngest member got the killer virus four years ago. • "I told my family, thinking that they might throw me out. But on the contrary, my sister and brother encouraged me. They told me I had not committed a crime and it was just a kind of illness." • Isn’t he worried that his television appearance could cause people to stare at him in the streets? • "No. Just let them stare. I want to educate the next generation. Today’s youngsters are very promiscuous," he says, adding that promoting sex education is not enough.

37. Researching interdiscourse communication • Exploring the ‘interaction order’ • What is the basis of power? • What is the basis of intimacy? • What are the default face systems/strategies for different situations? • What is the potential for miscommunication?