A Contrastive Analysis of the Concept of “Face” for Chinese And Americans.doc

a contrastive analysis of the concept of “face” for chinese and americans1 introduction1.1 background of “face” researchthe study of chinese concept of “face” has become urgent. in zhai xueweis words, “whether face should be studied, whether it can be studied or not; if so, how it should be studied and what results such studies would yield, all relate to the issues of to what extent chinese will be able to understand their own society-culture psychology and where the chinese destiny lies, and to grasp the differences of facework from a variety of cultures”(1998:236).until now no study has been found to deal exclusively with the relationship between facework and conflict-related issues. this study aims to draw relevant connections between chinese facework and chinese conflict prevention.1.2 the significance of “face” researchwith the development of economy, in any interpersonal communication situation, it is of great importance for an individual to understand clearly his or her partners face needs. the study of face and facework is also growing, especially in the field of communication and related fields. this study provides the similarities and differences in face perceptions between china and the united states. it is self-evident that research on differences of face concerns contributes more reduction of intercultural misunderstandings and promotes more effective and smooth communication between cultures, in particular those cultures with distinctively different values. the previous research results will be challenged and some long cherished ideas may be called into question. 2 literature review2.1 face in china2.1.1 historical reference to chinese face like all cultures, the chinese world view has been shaped by religion, especially confucianism. confucianism, meanwhile, has exerted significant influence on the course of everyday life in china. this religion is set up as exclusive and competitive philosophies. rather, it has been blended with each other in the chinese mind. confucianism has became the foundation stone of chinese philosophy system. confucianisms central doctrine is that of the virtue of “ren”. what is “ren”. “ren” is translated variously as goodness, humanity and human heartedness. in short, “ren” means affection and love, some of the more important core beliefs include respect for family and elders, as well as the value of accepting ones place in the social order. scholars only began to recognize the confucian roots of the chinese concept in the past decade. confucianism holds that the perfection of a person by means of self cultivation can only be accomplished within the following five relationships: the father son (the relation of closeness); emperor subject (the relation of righteousness); husband wife (the relation of distinction); elder younger brothers; and friend friend (the relation of faithfulness). the family relationships can be extended to the society so that the whole society is a large family. whats more, the scholars point out that the principle of naming is also a significant part of the roots of the chinese concept of face. there are two ideas of confucian naming crucial to understanding tile chinese concept of face. they are: firstly, the society is a network of positions, places and relationships that are all fixedly named. secondly, in order to change or reclaim the reality, the proper name has to be rectified. thus, from the perceptive of naming, face is the position one nominally occupies and mianzi is a way to make ones name more widely known. lin yutang then gave a more specific and more vivid description of face, which perhaps best reveals its significance and mystery for the chinese. he argued, “face cannot be translated or defined. it is like honor and is not honor. it cannot be purchased with money, and gives a man or a woman a material pride. it is hollow and is what a man or a woman die for. it is invisible and yet by definition exists by being shown to the public” (1936: 126).2.1.2 studies on chinese face the line of research on the chinese concept of face was initiated by hu, who for the first time discovered that face in china could be classified into two types, “lian” and “mian-zi” (1944), which is echoed by ting toomey (1988).“lian” represents the confidence of society in the integrity of egos moral character, loss of which makes it impossible for him to function properly within the community, while “mian - zi” stands for a reputation achieved through getting on in life, through success. ho (1976) interprets the chinese concepts of face from a comparative perspective face in the east and individualism in the west and warns that they should not be confused. although he distinguished the concept of face from other closely related constructs such as authority, standards of behavior, personality, status, dignity, and honor, he fails to treat them as related constructs that have both similarities and differences. many other researchers also express their understandings about the concept of face. for instance, wei (1988) insists that face is an emotional manner and has a lot to do with the consciousness of shame; jia (1997) contends that face is interpersonal identity that exists in our communication process and has long being ignored; king (1998) thinks face functions like a credit card, which can be overdrawn thus care must be taken to keep ones account balance. to sum up, all the metaphors imply face is something powerful and potent in our life but a clear definition as to what is face has not been given.to better understand the complicated meaning of face, we should first of all refer to donal carbaughs(1994: 291) cultural communication model of personhood, communication; and emotions since it seems capable of capturing the complexity and multiplicity of the chinese concepts of face. for the chinese, ones face goes beyond the physical face, rather, it represents a special kind of personhood. the ideal chinese personhood with each person preferably enmeshed with other persons and each family as an inseparable member of the empire / nation.l emotions and face. face also involves some personal feelings, which are indicated in some chinese phrases, such as giving mianzi, earning mianzi rewarding mianzi and saving mianzi.l communication and face. as stella ting toomey (1994) notes, face appears to represent the civilized, balanced point of situated interaction in a given culture. to be sensitive to other peoples face and to be able to interpret the constantly changing facial expressions of the people with whom you interact are not only very important skills of social and professional promotion in the chinese society.besides, japanese scholar julie suedo (2004:23) identified some different features of chinese mianzi and japanese mianzi in an empirical study. he found that chinese mianzi concerns economic ability for economic ability, social evaluation of ones competence; it is crucial for relationships with close people; they are reluctant to apologize; everybodys mianzi should be respected, and the importance of another mianzi depends on whether or not others will bring them benefits. the japanese, on the other hand, focuses on their own social status, attaches great importance to hierarchy, concerns personal appearance, like compliments from others, and do not regard a joke, even if it concerns someones incompetency, as a threat to mianzi.2.2 face in the united statesbefore going into further discussion of the american concept of “face”, it is important to clarify the fact that such a concept does exist in the united states, although many times it is called by other names, such as image, self esteem, self respect, dignity, reputation, fame, etc. yet the problem is few scholars have clearly pointed out what the concept of face is in the united states. what we see from the literature review is more often than not a contrast between universal face and asian face. although universal face is not all that the american face refers to, it reflects most of the fact, because most of the researchers in this line were done by american scholars. thats why we now review face as a universal construct first.2.2.1 face as a universal construct goffman (1955:75), who laid the groundwork for the research of this field, described “face” as something that is diffusedly located in the flow of events. brown and levinson (1978; 36) expanded and explained goffmans theory by pointing out that face is “the public self image that every member wanted to claim for himself / herself”. face, thus, is a universal phenomenon regardless of their culture, all people have face and a desire to maintain and even gain more of it. it is inseparable from ones appropriate social functioning, which gives evidence that it is a matter of universal concern.the two characteristics of face outlined by lusting and koester (1999:126) are very useful for us to understand this concept.l first, face is social. this means that face is not what an individual thinks of himself or herself but rather how that person wants others to regard his or her worth. face therefore refers to the public or social image of an individual that is held by others. face, then, always occurs in a relational setting.l second, face is an impression, which may or may not be shared by all, that may differ from a persons self image. peoples claims for face, therefore, are not requests to know what others actually think about them; instead, they are solicitations from others of favorable expressions about them. to maintain face, people want others to act toward them with respect, regardless of their “real” thoughts and impressions.these findings more or less show the implication and significance of face concept of the americans. however, it is more necessary and essential to take a look at what the cultural specific studies have discovered.2.2.2 studies on american face2.2.2.1 erving goffmans face conceptearly in the 1950s, e. goffman proposed the concept of “face” which eternally exists in accompanying peoples communication.he defines “face” as “the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact”. according to him, face is a scared thing for every human being, essential factor communicators all have to pay attention to; face wants are reciprocal, i.e. if one wants his face cared for, he should care for other peoples face. meanwhile face is not a private property “lodged in or on his (the individuals ) body”, but as an image “located in the flow of events” supported by other peoples judgments and by “impersonal agencies in the situation”. so face is a public image that is on loan to individuals from society, and that will be withdrawn from them if they prove unworthy of it. to save this public image, people must do the “face-work”, which goffman calls. the face theory, put forward by brown and levinson in 1978, is one influential theory on politeness, which is based on goffmans face notion in the late 50s.2.2.2.2 brown and levinsons positive and negative facein 1978, english scholars brown and levinson published their work “universals in language usage: politeness phenomena”, in which questions of politeness and face are systematically discussed at first time. then in 1987, they cooperate again to finish the book “politeness : some universals in language usage” and completely explained the relationship between politeness and face from a cross-cultural perspective. their work has attracted great attention of linguistic field, and politeness theory was considered as a very important part of pragmatics. they claim that face is something that is emotionally invested, and that can be lost, maintained, or enhanced, and must be constantly attended to interaction. in general, people cooperate with each other in maintaining face, which is an “individuals self-esteem” of the “public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself/herself”. it refers to that emotional and social sense of self that everyone has and expects everyone else to recognize. they distinguish face into negative face and postive face.one is negative face, or the rights to territories, freedom of action and freedom from imposition-wanting your actions not to be constrained or inhibited by oyhers. in other words, a persons negative face is the need to be independent.the other is positive face, the positive consistent self-image that people have and their desire to be appreciated and approved of by at least some other people and to be treated as a member of the same group. in short, positive face is the need to be connected.in communication, respecting for both of the other partys positive face and negative face is required so that the purpose of conversation can be finally reached.2.2.2.3 scollon, r and s. w. scollons development on face scollon and scollon study face and politeness from the interpersonal view. they put forward the concept “paradox of face”, which includes two sub-concepts : involvement and independence. they hold that the involvement aspect of face puts emphasis on “the persons right” and the communicator should be “a normal, contributing, or supporting member of society”, and the independence aspect of face is concerned with “the individuality of the participants”. they uphold that any communication can be a threat to face. in fact, involvement has been called positive face, or solidarity politeness and independence negative face, or deference politeness. 3 characteristics of facework in chinese culture and american culture3.1 major characteristics of chinese concept of “face” in chinese, “face” has to do with the image or credibility of the person you are dealing with. you should never, insult, embarrass, shame, yell at or otherwise demean a person. if you do, they will lose “face”. just like cases we have mentioned above. for example, in ancient times, a chinese warrior chief may commit suicide after losing a battle, because he has lost face. while this may no longer occur, the concept of “face” remains alive in china. awareness of face and its impact has been an extremely important cultural issue. the chinese concept of “face” includes three characteristics: relational, communal, and moral. first of all, face is conceptualized as relational in chinese culture and synonymous with “relational”, which could be effective and emotional. cheng indicates that “face” is based on human feelings as an appeal to promote a harmonious human relationship. ting toomey identifies face giving, other directed face or face honoring as a major component of the collectivist culture which should be embraced as the relational part of face negotiation model. cheng (1986) best summarizes the relational nature of the chinese mien tze:the trust, mutual dependence, harmony, forming good feelings, and good human relationships all become ingredients of a generalized notion of human relationship which is connoted by the concept of “face”, which is both the goal and the means for strengthening and expressing the harmonization of human relationships among men in society, it is a substitute for strict legislation regarding duties and rights and obligations among men. it is to act from the basic feelings governing human relationships. thus, any human relationship which appeals to ones feelings of family group or semi family group will acquire an appeal to influence others and thus count as an element of face (mian - tze). the larger ones face is, the more integrative the sphere of human relationships he is capable of forging and embracing. secondly, the chinese concept of “face” is communal. the very concept of face, as ho (1976) suggests is role based, thus “have the effect of diminishing the stature of man as an individual”. since face is constituted communally, to lose it would negatively affect the community and consequentially, and the loser would be ostracized by the community, and the member who retains it is accepted as a full member of the community. the interchangeability of the two chinese idioms “diu lian” (losing face) and “diu ren” (losing humanity) demonstrate that face is the definition of being fully human in the chinese context and it is a ticket for a full membership of the community. thirdly, the chinese concept of “face” is deeply moral, and “lian” is the primary carrier of moral codes. hu (1944) defines lian or “face” as “the respect of the group for a man with a good moral reputation”, and the loss of “face” as “a condemnation by the group for immoral or socially disagreeable bahavior”. she defines the fear of losing face as an effort to keep oneself constantly conscious of moral boundaries and to hold up to the moral values historically transmitted and traditionally accepted. in a word, the phrase “to save face” is familiar to many people. in china, these words are a clue to a deeply held cultural value, and the chinese place great significance on the concept of “face”.3.2 characteristics of facework in american cultureindividualism holds that the individual is the unit of achievement. while not denying that one person can build the achievements on others, individualism points out that achievement goes beyond what has already been done, it is something new that is created by the individual. americans lead their life with individual values.first of all, individual freedom, the value that nearly every american would agree upon is individual freedom. whether you call it individual freedom, individualism, or independence, it is the cornerstone of american values, business are small, and many of them are owned by an individual or a family. it is part of the “american dream” to “be your own boss”. a