Face and politeness: new (insights) for old (concepts)

Abstract

The article re-examines Erving Goffman’s concepts of face and face-work and their roots in the ritual and sacred essence of the social order as expounded in the work of the French sociologist Emile Durkheim. Both Goffman and Durkheim are referred to in Brown and Levinson’s classic work on politeness but the originality of their ideas has become somewhat diluted. Using three of Goffman’s early essays, the article argues that his observations on the interactional order and his sophisticated notions of face and face-work could be the starting point for a re-appraisal of politeness and its fundamental role in the social order. Many gods have been done away with, but the individual himself stubbornly remains as a deity of considerable importance. He walks with some dignity and is the recipient of many little offerings. He is jealous of the worship due him, yet, approached in the right spirit, he is ready to forgive those who may have offended him. Because of their status relative to his, some persons will find him contaminating while others will find they contaminate him, in either case finding that they must treat him with ritual care. Perhaps the individual is so viable as god because he can actually understand the ceremonial significance of the way he is treated, and quite on his own can respond dramatically to what is proffered him. In contacts between such deities there is no need for middlemen; each of these gods is able to serve as his own priest. E. Goffman 1967 [1956]: 95