Facework

Facework , also face-work or face work (English, literally: "work on the face", but without a clear equivalent in the German terminology) can be translated as "preservation of the face" or in the figurative sense as "face care" or "face work" . It characterizes the strategic behavior of people in various forms of social interaction , through which they try to preserve, protect or restore their own face or that of their communication partner (i.e. their own or their self-image ). Facework also plays a central role in formal diplomatic negotiations and in solving intercultural conflicts.

This includes forms of politeness, consideration and tact, but also the avoidance of irritating topics or white lies. The forms of facework differ greatly in an intercultural comparison.

Theories

Social psychological theories as well as those from the field of the sociology of emotions (e.g. interaction theory, theory of emotional self-management , theory of emotional investment) exist for the analysis of facework activities .

Face

The term face was first used by Erving Goffman to describe face-saving behavior in direct interaction, with face encompassing both the values ​​internalized by a person and those values ​​that are socially ascribed to them. Goffmann leaned on the Chinese double concept of "face", in which the words lien stand for the "inner" moral face, the character, and mien-tsu for the "outer" social face, the prestige. The former is defended by moral conduct; the latter is enhanced by accomplishments, wealth and power. The metaphor has similar meanings in East Asia, the Arab world, Thailand and in the South Slavic language area ( образ = honor, character).

Facework in everyday life

Goffman interpreted these two terms as identity and ego. Facework is the construction of a public self-image, i.e. the work on the public image that is supposed to emerge of a person, whereby they try to prevent the self-image and the external image from falling apart. According to Goffman, this endeavor is universal; the result is face . According to Goffman, working on one's own face plays a major role in many everyday interactions.

In the German translation, however , facework was shortened to “techniques of image cultivation ”, ie to the “outer” face that someone wants to create or the sum of the ideas that others have about a person. Such a narrow definition neglects the fact that face in Goffman's sense arises in interactive processes, is expressed in actions and communications, and is strongly dependent on the situation. This interactive aspect is well expressed in a 1967 definition by Goffman. This implies that different aspects of the face are shown on different sides. After that is face

"The positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact"

- Erving Goffman

The person face shows claims ( claims ), then, to be socially valuable or relevant to other, by a certain pattern ( line ) of the interaction, the other seen in a particular contact situation.

Cupach and Metts apply the concept to the management of all phases of close and intimate relationships, from the first contact to more or less face-saving conflict management to separation. In their analysis, the focus is on saving face. Susan Shimanoff also analyzes the rules that govern face-saving communication between spouses. Sachiko Ide u. a. analyze the gender-specific courtesy rules in Japan.

The sociolinguists Brown and Levinson define face as the image that someone wants to create of themselves in public: the public self-image that every member of a society wants to claim for himself / herself. Your concept of face thus comes closer to the concept of image. In its examples from three languages 1978/1987 published theory of polite criticism and self-criticism and the rude behavior ( impoliteness ) develop them as concerned about their own identity, the desire to protect the face of others, and situational requirements be linked in various discourse strategies .

Lim and Bowers distinguish three factors that influence the performance of facework : the intimacy of a relationship, the power distance between the actors and the right to show a certain behavior in a situation.

Robert Arundale differentiates more clearly between face- keeping or building up and mere polite behavior. In his face constituting theory , he examines how face is built up in everyday interaction with linguistic means. He defines face as a person's understanding of what connects and separates them from others in everyday communication and cooperation.

A general distinction is made between the strategies of face saving , i.e. the preservation of the self-image, and face restoration , i.e. the restoration of a damaged self-image. Tracy also distinguishes between (face) appreciative, compensatory, threatening and neutral communications. An extremely complicated and stressful variant of facework is stigma management .

See also : face concept

Facework in conflicts and negotiations

In the event of conflicts and negotiations, facework also has the function of strengthening one's own position at the expense of the interaction partners and possibly damaging their reputation ( face negotiation ). Facework is therefore not only used to avoid or resolve conflicts through identity- sensitive communication, but also to provoke or challenge others. An example of intentional damage to identity is the Inuit singing contest , in which it is important to make the opponent scorn.

Facework also plays an important role in the administrative area, both in internal negotiations and consultations as well as in interaction with citizens.

For Ting-Toomey face is a projection of one's own self-image, whose identity (especially in Asia) is always defined by the members of a system of relationships. It distinguishes between four "super strategies":

1. Face restoration or self negative face (the effort to protect one's own sphere of autonomy from interference by others)
2. Face-Saving or Other Negative-Face (the endeavor to preserve the autonomy of others)
3. Face assertion or self positive face (the desire for inclusion and community with others)
4. Face-Giving or Other Positive-Face (the desire to support others' need for inclusion and community)

She examines these strategies in her face negotiation theory and points out the intercultural differences in solving face-saving or face-restoring conflict resolution strategies : The four types are differently pronounced depending on the culture. So take z. B. People of Asian origin in the United States seldom practice meditation because one “does not do dirty laundry in public”; H. wants to protect its own sphere of autonomy from interference.

Application of the term in the media area

With the advance of interactive media, the term is also being transferred to self-presentation techniques in social media. The user showcase Although incorporeal and often "faceless" ( faceless ) in social media; however, the often anonymous likes they receive are adopted by them as part of their self-image. Even in textual or media-mediated "face-to-face" communication, such as in professional or practitioner communities or in Wikipedia, it can also be about saving face. Social media such as Facebook ultimately even make facework their program, in the sense that people who are not in the limelight work on their public self-image.

Insofar as social media can also be interpreted as “cultures” (e.g. “culture of the Internet”), “face representation” in these spaces is also culturally shaped. It is unclear whether intercultural differences in self-presentation will be homogenized in the longer term through social media or whether culturally shaped patterns of action from the real world will be retained in the virtual spaces.

The creation of CVs and competence profiles in paper or electronic form is also increasingly about facework , namely about presenting yourself in an employer-specific and situation-dependent manner, so that you can show several public faces from different sides and according to different requirements at the same time. Or you give yourself a face lift in your CV .

The face concept is thus becoming more and more dynamic and gaining importance compared to the internalized values ​​acquired through socialization, i.e. the rather static concept of character or identity. Face thus becomes a relational term, as it is already in the East Asian societies. In addition, the face is increasingly segmented into domains that appear on different sides - similar to the concept of social role .

criticism

The fuzzy definition of the metaphorical face term, which has been changing since Goffman and in some cases has become rampant, is criticized. The concept of an incorporeal virtual face in social networks makes it even more complex and a fuzzy term.

literature

• Karen Tracy: The many faces of facework. In: Howard Giles, W. Peter Robinson: Handbook of Language and Social Psychology. John Wiley, 1990, pp. 209-226. (Review article)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Facework , in: APA dictionary
2. ↑ Erving Goffman: Interaction ritual: essays on face-to-face interaction. Aldine, Chicago 1967.
3. ^ Hsien Chin Hu: The Chinese concept of 'face' . In: American Anthropologist , 46 (1944), pp. 45-64.
4. ↑ Russian only in terms of figure, image.
5. ↑ Erving Goffman: On face-work: An analysis of ritual elements in social interaction. In: Psychiatry 18 (1955), pp. 213-231.
6. ^ Erving Goffman: The presentation of self in everyday life. Anchor Books 1959, p. 511. (First 1956). - German Edition: "We all play theater." 10th edition, Piper Verlag, Munich 2003.
7. ↑ Erving Goffman: Techniques of image cultivation. In: Ders .: Interaktionsrituale (1955). Over-behavior in direct communication. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1967 (3rd edition 1994).
8. ^ Erving Goffman: Interaction ritual: Essays in face-to-face behavior. Aldine, Chicago 1967, p. 213.
9. ↑ William R. Cupach, Sandra Metts: Face Work . Sage, 1994.
10. ↑ Susan Shimanoff: Rules for governing the verbal expression of emotions between married couples. In Western Journal of Speech Communication 49 (1985), pp. 147-165.
11. ^ S. Ide, M. Hor, A. Kawasaki, S. Ikuta, H. Haga: Sex differences and politeness in Japanese. In: International Journal of the Sociology of Language 58 (1986), pp. 25-36.
12. ↑ See Tracy p. 212; see. also Penelope Brown, Stephen C. Levinson: Face-threatening nudes. In: hurtful words , ed. by Steffen Herrmann, Sybille Krämer, Hannes Kuch. Bielefeld 2007, pp. 59-88.
13. ↑ On intercultural differences, see also: Nina Nixdorf: Politeness in English, German, Russian: an intercultural comparison based on the example of rejections and replies to compliments. Tectum, 2002.
14. ↑ Tae-Seop Lim, John Waite Bowers: Face Work: Solidarity, approbation, and tact. In: Human Communication Research, 17 (1991), pp. 415-450.
15. ^ Robert B. Arundale: Face as a research focus in interpersonal pragmatics: Relational and emic perspectives. In: Journal of Pragmatics , 58 (2013), pp. 108-120.
16. ^ Robert B. Arundale: Face Constituting Theoriy. in: Wiley Online Library , April 27, 2015. doi.org/10.1002/9781118611463.wbielsi094.
17. ↑ Stephen W. Littlejohn, K. Karen A. Foss: Theories of Human Communication. 10th ed. 2011. Waveland Press, Long Grove, IL, p. 203.
18. ↑ Tracy p. 217.
19. ↑ Erving Goffman: Stigma. Notes on the management of spoiled identity. Penguin, Harmondsworth 1968.
20. ↑ Stella Ting-Toomey: Intercultural conflict styles: A face negotiation theory. In YY Kim, WB Gudykunst (Ed.): Theories in intercultural communication. Sage: Newbury Park, CA, 1988, pp. 213-238.
21. ↑ Oliver Schmidtke: Statehood, Deliberation and Facework: A Qualitative Analysis of Interactions in Public Administration. Cologne 1992, p. 96 ff.
22. ↑ Stella Ting-Toomey, A. Kurogi: Facework competence in intercultural conflict: An updated face-negotiation theory. In: International Journal of Intercultural Relations , 22 (1998) 2, pp. 187-225.
23. ^ Joel Lee, Hwee Hwee Teh: An Asian Perspective on Mediation. Academy Publishing, 2009, p. 164.
24. ↑ Introduction , in: Kristina Bedijs, Gudrun Held, Christiane Maaß (Eds.): Face Work and Social Media. LIT Verlag, Münster 2014, p. 11 f.
25. ↑ Bedijs u. a., p. 17.
26. ↑ Tracy, p. 221.
27. ↑ Bedijs u. a., p. 14.