Face negotiation theory

Face-Negotiation Theory is a theory conceived by Stella Ting-Toomey in 1985, to understand how people from different cultures manage rapport and disagreements. The theory posited 'face', or self-image when communicating with others, as a universal phenomenon that pervades across cultures. In conflicts, one's face is threatened; and thus the person tends to save or restore his or her face. This set of communicative behaviors, according to the theory, is called 'facework'. Since people frame the situated meaning of 'face' and enact 'facework' differently from one culture to the next, the theory poses a cultural-general framework to examine facework negotiation. It is important to note that the definition of face varies depending on the people and their culture and the same can be said for the proficiency of facework. Face-Negotiation Theory is a theory conceived by Stella Ting-Toomey in 1985, to understand how people from different cultures manage rapport and disagreements. The theory posited 'face', or self-image when communicating with others, as a universal phenomenon that pervades across cultures. In conflicts, one's face is threatened; and thus the person tends to save or restore his or her face. This set of communicative behaviors, according to the theory, is called 'facework'. Since people frame the situated meaning of 'face' and enact 'facework' differently from one culture to the next, the theory poses a cultural-general framework to examine facework negotiation. It is important to note that the definition of face varies depending on the people and their culture and the same can be said for the proficiency of facework. In this theory, 'face' is a metaphor for self-image, which originated from two Chinese conceptualizations: lien and mianzi. Lien is the internal moral face that involves shame, integrity, debasement, and honor issues. Mien-tzu, on the other hand, is the external social face that involves social recognition, position, authority, influence and power. Erving Goffman also situated 'face' in contemporary Western research and conceptualized the terms lien and mien-tzu as identity and ego. He noted that face is a concern for one's projected image that is both immediate and spontaneous and is tied to the dynamics of social interaction. Goffman also notes that face is a part of a performance, in which a performance is day-to-day activity that each individual uses to influence others. The performance of 'face' can be for the good of others or it can be for the good of one's self. Correspondingly, 'facework' denotes actions taken to maintain consistency between the self and public line. The two forms of facework include restorative and preventative. Restorative facework is the act of reinstating face after the loss of it has taken place; preventative face is the act of communicating to safeguard the threat of face being lost. Further research by Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson on politeness suggests that the desire for face is a universal concern. Brown and Levinson further suggested that face can refer to two wants of the individual- the positive face that necessitates approval by others and the negative face that requires that one's actions or thoughts are unimpeded by others. Thus participants wants are of more importance than the interaction itself in face saving view of politeness. In fact, researchers Brown and Levinson posit that face is something that 'is emotionally invested, and can be lost, maintained, or enhanced, and must be constantly attended to in interaction'. Levinson and Brown did not, however, address culture specific norms, which is why Ting-Toomey decided to do so in this theory. Ting-Toomey expanded this thinking and conceptualized face as an individual's claimed sense of favorable social self-image in a relational and network context. Facework is defined as clusters of communicative behaviors that are used to enact self-face and to uphold, challenge/threaten, or support the other person's face. With these concepts and frameworks, face-negotiation theory investigated intercultural conflict styles. The perceived or actual conflict differences revolved around three issues: content, relational, and identity. Content conflict refers to the substantive issues external to the individual involved. Relational conflict refers to how individuals define, or would like to define, the particular relationship in that particular conflict episode. Identity-based conflict concerns issues of issues of identity confirmation-rejection, respect-disrespect, and approval-disapproval. In this way, identity issues are tided closely to culture-based face-orientation factors. A face-threatening episode is an identity expectancy violation episode. Thus, the face-negotiation theory views conflict, intercultural conflict in particular, as a situation that demands active facework management from the two interdependent conflict parties. It can also be noted that in face-negotiation, individuals negotiate face not only with others, but with themselves, as well. The theory has gone through multiple iterations since its creation. There is a 1988 version of seven assumptions and 12 propositions, a 1998 version of seven assumptions and 32 propositions, and most recent the 2005 version of seven assumptions and 24 propositions. Face and facework are universal phenomena. A Face-Negotiation Theory perspective stresses the impact of culture on the situated meaning of face and the enactment of facework. Thus, the theory assumes that: Face-negotiation theory primarily deals with five sets of themes: face orientation or concerns, face movements, facework interaction strategies, conflict communication styles, and face content domains. In the 2005 version of theory, the five thematic clusters are referred as 'core taxonomies'. The orientation of face determines the focus with which the face negotiator will direct her or his attention and energy of the conflict messages. Because of different concerns, caused by different underlying cultural values, face negotiators may orient towards self-face (one's own image), other face (the other conflict party's image) or mutual face (both parties' image and/or the image of the relationship).