LANGUAGE IN INDIA

An Overview of Face and Politeness

Mohammed Hasan Ahmed ALFattah, M. A., Ph.D. Candidate

Introduction

Among others, the concept 'face' in explaining polite linguistic usage has been much discussed by Asian linguists, particularly Japanese sociolinguists, Ide and those who have worked with her. It is also found in the work of the Japanese pragmatist Matsumoto.

"The word face is a literal translation of the two Chinese characters Mianzi and Liian (Ho, 1994:867). It originally appeared in the phrase 'to save one's face ' in the English community in China , and convey meaning of ' one's' credit good name, reputation ; the phrase ' to save or face' as a whole refers to the ways or strategies the Chinese commonly adopted in order to avoid incurring shame or disgrace . Brown and Levinson define face as ' the public self- image that every member wants to claim for himself (1987:61). In Arabic, this concept is derived from an expression in classical Arabic (Fush that literally translates as losing the water of one's face (Iragat maa alwajh) which is used to mean losing one's positive face wants (Nureddeen, 2008).

The meaning conveyed by Mianzi has apparently been incorporated into the definition of face by many contemporary English dictionaries. For example, Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1986) defines face as " dignity of prestige"; the American Heritage Dictionary (1981) characterizes face as Value or standing in the eyes of others"; and the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English ( 1985) see face as " a state of being respected by others". Goffman (1967: 9) sees the same phrase as an act "to arrange for another to take a better line that might otherwise have been able to take.

According to Brown and Levinson (1987) face is the essential element of politeness. To be polite is to be face-caring means that all face-threatening acts (FTAs) are not polite, since they do not care for but threaten face, hence they are impolite acts. Face and politeness hold a means to end relation between them. Since face is vulnerable to FTA, it is politeness that amounts their performance to reduce, at least superficially their poignancy so that face is made less vulnerable.

"Face" in Brown and Levinson's model is taken from Goffman, and it is a theoretical construct. The model person (MP) in Brown and Levinson model refers to the speaker and the reason behind bringing the addressee to the picture is in order that the (MP) can assess, which is the most important politeness strategy to be used in the circumstances. The ways in which the addressee may react to the politeness strategy produced is not mentioned. The focus in Brown and Levinson's model is in the speaker, whereas the focus in Leech's model is on the hearer.

Brown and Levinson propose that every person has two types of face, positive and negative. Positive face is defined as the individual's desire that his / her wants be appreciated and approved of in social interaction, whereas negative face is the desire for freedom of action and freedom from imposition. Goffman assumes that every participant's face for the duration of the social interaction should be maintained during the face work, it is therefore in the interests of all the participants to reduce face threatening to a minimum. Watts (2003) has therefore pointed out that politeness strategies will be those which aim at:

supporting or enhancing the addressee's positive face (positive politeness) and avoiding transgressors of addressee's freedom of action and freedom from imposition (negative politeness).

Brown and Levinson's assumption of two types of politeness, positive politeness being addressed, the addressees, positive face and negative politeness being addressed his/her negative face are similar to Leech's 'minimization' and 'maximization' strategies.

It should be noted that FTAs involve, the performance of speech acts which aim either at inducing the addressee to carry out an action which would not under 'normal' circumstances be to his/her benefit or to accept an assessment of some aspect of addressee's person or world which, again 'under normal' circumstances, would be evaluated as negative (Watts, 2003: 87).

So, committing FTAs is in the speaker's rather than the addressee's interests and can be interpreted as an attempt to exercise power even if the addressee is realized to be carefully invested with more power than the speaker.

One of the problems with which Brown and Levinson model is the degree of rational choice that speakers are expected to exercise in choosing an appropriate strategy. Their model doesn't include the possibility that two or more strategies might be chosen at the same time.

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