Positive Face Research Articles

Deconstructing imagined identities and imagined communities through humor

Abstract The aim of this study is to explore humor as a means for deconstructing identities in humorous narratives written by adult L2 learners. Norton Pierce’s (1995) notions of investment in L2 learning, imagined identities, and imagined communities as well as the concepts of script opposition and target employed for the sociopragmatic analysis of humor (Attardo 2001) are exploited for demonstrating how humor constitutes a means for deconstructing L2 learners’ imaginary projections and investments in L2. The analysis reveals that L2 learners use humor in their narratives to account for their failure to fulfill their imagined identities as competent speakers and legitimate members of the host community, or for the flouting of their expectations concerning the behavior of the members of the imagined host community. Moreover, humor emerges as a strategy allowing learners to attenuate potential threats against their own positive face or that of host community members (Brown and Levinson 1987).

An Applied Linguistics Study of How Students Prevent Embarrassments and Impositions During Interactive Examination OSCEs

ObjectiveTo assess the effectiveness of politeness strategies used by pharmacy students to avoid embarrassing or imposing on others during objective structured clinical examinations. MethodsA total of 19 objective structured clinical examinations video recordings of 10 students (participants) interacting with mock patients were examined using the framework of Politeness Theory (PT). All relevant participant acts (speech activities) were coded using PT into (1) type of face threatening acts (ie, potentially sensitive situations—as regarded by PT) and (2) politeness strategies used to mitigate them. Conversation Analysis was then used to examine the effectiveness of conversational strategies by judging the ‘patient’ responses to these strategies. ResultsMost acts had the potential to impact patients’ negative face needs (ie, desire to act autonomously, eg, upon the practitioner making a request), positive face needs (ie, desire to be liked, eg, upon the practitioner making a diagnosis), or both. Despite applying a variety of positive politeness strategies (eg, avoiding disagreement, or expressing understanding) to prevent embarrassment to the patient, and negative politeness strategies (eg, being indirect, using hedging, or minimizing the imposition) to avoid directly imposing on them, “dispreferred responses” showed participants mostly focused on avoiding impositions, corresponding to what they have been taught, rather embarrassments. ConclusionParticipants were less aware that discussing sensitive topics could cause embarrassment to patients, with the potential to upset them. Developing teaching and evaluation methods to consider patients’ face needs could help in assessing and improving pharmacy students’ communication skills.

Regional head elections, high-cost politics, and corruption in Indonesia

Direct regional head elections or direct election give rise to two faces for Indonesian politics. On the one hand, a positive face towards democracy; on the other hand, it displays a negative impact. Its positive impacts include efforts to strengthen the political legitimacy of local governments; achieving political empowerment of citizens; institutionalizing checks and balances mechanisms between institutions in the region; and the emergence of female regional heads. Meanwhile, among the negative impacts of direct elections are the high costs of politics. The research presents a qualitative approach with data collection techniques in the form of literature studies, observations, and interviews. This paper marks aspects high costs were caused by several factors, such as candidacy buying, campaign costs, witness fees during the election, political consultant fees, and appeal fees to the Constitutional Court. Therefore, it is not surprising that the winning contestants will try to return to their capital by means of corruption. This research implies at least four modes of return of political capital exist for regional heads, namely: bribery in obtaining permits; buying and selling positions; bribes in the procurement of projects and goods; and manipulation of social assistance. Referring to this dilemma, it turns out that the election still leaves a huge amount of homework for deepening democracy in Indonesia.

Support Seeking Behavior During Supportive Conversations: The Role of Impression Management Concerns and the Communication Medium

An experiment was conducted to better understand how impression management concerns and the communication medium influence the messages produced by support seekers during supportive conversations. Support seekers were primed to anticipate a positive face threat (or not primed) and then completed a supportive conversation with a peer either face-to-face or using instant messaging. Seekers primed to anticipate a face threat were more likely to use avoidance behaviors and less likely to use incriminating justifications as conversations persisted compared to the no prime condition. Seekers in the instant messaging condition were less likely to use exonerating justifications as conversations persisted compared to participants who communicated face-to-face. A three-way interaction for approach behaviors showed that the decreased likelihood of approach behaviors over the course of a conversation was strongest in the face threat prime condition among participants using instant messaging. The implications of these findings for supportive communication theory are considered.

Politeness strategies and face-threatening acts in master-servant relationships in selected Wole Soyinka and William Shakespeare’s drama texts

This paper presents pieces of evidence of the use of Politeness Strategies and Face threateningActs in dialogues between characters in two drama texts: Death and the King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka, a Nigerian author (text A) and Othello by William Shakespeare, an English author (text B). This research analyses the relationship between Pilkings, Amusa and Joseph in Death and the King’s Horseman and the relationship between Othello and Iago in Othello. The analysis utilisesthe politeness theory by Brown and Levinson (1978 and 1987) which revolves around the concept of face by Erving Goffman(1967). The thrust of thistheory is to minimise conflict and foster harmony in social interaction. In order to answer the following questions, the data werepurposively selected and qualitative research design is utilized: Do the speeches in the texts satisfy the principle of politeness? What kind of meaning interpretation is depicted in these drama texts? How has speech been used to show the kind of relationship that exists between these characters? It was discovered that while Amusa is utilising negative strategy, Pilkings always makesuse of negative face-threatening actsto avoid his subordinates losing their fear and respect for him; he usespositive face strategy when he dearly needshis subordinates to give him the response he needs. In Othello, the positive face strategy is deployed to enhance an ideal and harmonious master-servant relationship. This paper concludes that the use of politeness strategies is contextualised by the use of power relations between speaker and listener.

A Pragmatic Study of Dysphemism in Steven Berkoff’s Play East

The present study pragmatically explores categories and functions of dysphemisms in Steven Berkoff’s play East. The objective of the paper is to explore the characters’ use of dysphemism; its categories and functions and apply Allan and Burridge’s (2006) classification of dysphemism, Goffman’s (1962) notion of face, and Brown and Levinson’s (1987) theory of politeness to the play. To gather and examine the text, the researcher adopts a qualitative descriptive approach which involves the researcher himself being the instrument who does everything. The data are taken from the script that is read and re-read to identify the dysphemistic expressions and then coded to be analyzed by using a qualitative discourse analysis method. The results of the paper reveal that all characters use all the categories of dysphemism; insult is the most used followed by profanity and obscenity. In addition, they utilize dysphemism to express hatred, anger, and disrespect, ridicule, and insult each other. Besides, they do not mitigate their expressions and attack each other positive face and the audience’s positive face too. The findings of the study are beneficial to pupils, teachers, writers, journalists, TV producers, footballers, orators, filmmakers, and politicians who are anticipated to be familiar with the dysphemistic terms in order to avoid them and use neutral ones as alternatives.

An Analysis of Oral Academic Discourse in Classroom Discussions

This discourse analysis is aimed to investigate the what sorts of speech acts have illocutionary power in constructing academic discussions and the ways speech acts such as disagreements framed and organized such as in turn-taking in oral academic discussions and how face threatening and maintaining self- mage are conceptualized. This includes thirty minutes conversation between the instructor and her students in a classroom setting. The nature of interaction from the verbal exchanges in academic discussions were examined, analyzed and clarified based on the Speech Act Theory of Austin and Searle, Frame Theory of Goffman and Tannen and lastly, Politeness Theory of Brown and Levinson. The results showed that the sorts of speech acts have illocutionary power in constructing academic discussions and there are ways that speech acts such as disagreements are framed and organized such as in turn-taking in oral academic discussions in order to maintain the social image of the participants of conversation. Verbal interaction at discussions has its way in maintaining the face-work like threatening and displaying positive image. The aspects of face as basic wants are composed of negative and positive faces are applied to acts threatening positive or negative face, and the three variables are - power, social distance and imposition can be applied in just a small segment of conversation. It was revealed that keying’ which consists of an “openly admitted” transformation of untransformed activity and concerns a systematic reworking of

Cognitive-pragmatic functions of mitigation in therapeutic conversations emphasizing rapport management.

Based on conversations between 15 clients and 5 therapists in the context of daily treatment, this study investigated therapist-client linguistic mitigation in a natural setting. The study found that (1) the therapists and clients mainly used three major types of mitigation, among which illocutionary mitigation and propositional mitigation were employed more frequently. Furthermore, direct dissuasion and disclaimers, as subtypes of mitigators, were the most regularly employed by therapists and clients, respectively. (2) Through cognitive-pragmatic interpretation under rapport management theory, it was found that mitigation in the therapist-client conversations mainly performed cognitive-pragmatic functions in giving the means to preserve positive face, maintaining social rights and concentrating on interactive goals, which were interpenetrated with each other in therapeutic conversations. (3) This study proposed that three cognitive-pragmatic functions jointly devoted to a rapport in therapeutic relationship to reduce therapeutic risk of conflicts.

Assessing impoliteness-related language in response to a season's greeting posted by the Spanish and English Prime Ministers on Twitter

This paper analyzes impoliteness-related language in response to a season's greeting posted by the Prime Ministers of Spain and the UK on December 2022 to wish Twitter users a Felices Fiestas/Merry Christmas. A corpus made up of the first 500 tweet events mentioning Sánchez and Johnson with the @ feature was analyzed through the combination of qualitative and quantitative tools and an impoliteness2 approach to compare the most commonly deployed impoliteness strategies in response to what is felt as an offense by respondents from the two cultures. Previous impoliteness taxonomies inform the analysis (Culpeper, 1996, 2011). Findings reveal a preference for on-record strategies vs. off-record ones in both corpora. Whereas the English respondents oriented themselves towards attacking the negative face of the Prime Minister and that of other participants with sarcasm and implicated impoliteness, the Spanish group deployed impoliteness-related language to disparage the Prime Minister's positive face through insults and the rectification of his words. The hostile acts and explicit metalanguage about emotional states in the replies to the expressive speech act corroborate the perceived breach of some aspects of the moral order on the part of the Twitter users in the out-group, hence aiding the already observed polarization of political discussions.

Encouraging older adults to use assistive devices: The role of politeness theory

ABSTRACT The current study explored the application of Politeness Theory within the context of conversations between older adults and their adult children about acquiring assistive devices. Politeness Theory posits that we want our public self-image, i.e. ‘face’ to be respected, and that concept of face is divided into negative face and positive face. We can show respect for negative face by communicating we value a person’s autonomy, and we can show respect for positive face by communicating we value a person’s abilities. Participants age 65 years or older were randomly assigned to read one of four scripts of a conversation between an older adult and her adult child in which varying levels of respect for autonomy and abilities were expressed. The respect for both autonomy (negative face) and abilities (positive face) group reported significantly higher levels of willingness to consider acquiring assistive devices compared to the threatening both autonomy and ability group. Additionally, the role of geographic regions was explored and the findings were consistent across rural and urban contexts. The use of assistive devices among those who need them has been found to result in pervasive benefits in a variety of areas including physical health, mental health, functional abilities, and social activity. The findings are discussed in terms of implications for education in an array of contexts.

RENDERING SERVICES IN CHILD AND YOUTH CARE CENTRES: EXPERIENCES AND CHALLENGES OF SOCIAL WORKERS

Effective social work services in child and youth care centres (CYCCs) depend on how social workers deal with the associated experiences and challenges. This study explored social workers’ experiences and challenges in rendering services in CYCCs in the Tshwane municipal district. A qualitative research approach employing the phenomenological design was adopted, and in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted. The findings confirmed that social workers have various positive and negative experiences and face multiple challenges in rendering services in CYCCs. Several suggestions to improve service delivery in CYCCs are made. Keywords: social worker, experiences, challenges, social work services, Child and Youth Care Centre (CYCC)

POLITENESS STRATEGIES USED BY PEDICAB DRIVERS TO FOREIGN TOURISTS IN MALIOBORO STREET

This study discusses the use of English used by pedicab drivers in the Malioboro tourist area as a means of communication with foreign tourists to portray and improve the quality of English-speaking services in the future. By bringing out the element of politeness in communicating, people can further strengthen their social relations, both can respect each other's self-image. Unique informal learning from direct conversations with foreign tourists produces speech variations in English that are unique and different from standard English rules. This study is a qualitative descriptive study with conversational analysis that aims to describe the linguistic phenomena in the English variation of pedicab drivers on aspects of politeness strategies. Pedicab drivers in tourist locations utilize politeness strategies to create communications when face-threatening acts are unavoidable or deliberate in order to preserve the hearer's positive and negative face. In the interactions between pedicab drivers and international tourists, 15 data on positive politeness strategies and 14 data on negative politeness strategies were identified. The data analysis provided is taken from the representative data for each strategy. The dominant sub-strategy from the positive politeness strategy is "Notice, Attend to H (his Interest, Wants, Needs, Goods)," while the dominant sub-strategy from the negative politeness strategy is "Apologize."

ANALYZING THE MEANING OF LANGUAGE USE IN POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN THE DANISH GIRL MOVIE

Politeness strategies are used to craft messages that save the listener's positive and negative face when face-threatening behavior is inevitable or desired. Brown and Levinson mainly outline his four types of politeness strategies. Do not use baldness, negative politeness, positive politeness, off the record (indirect), and simply face-threatening behavior. Positive politeness strategies try to minimize threats to the listener's positive face and make the listener feel good. Negative politeness strategies are based on avoidance and assume that the speaker is imposing something on the listener. Off-the-record strategies use indirect speech to deprive the speaker of the possibility of imposing themselves on the listener. Discourse analysis is conducted to analyze the "face-threatening acts" (FTA) in some conversations of The Danish Girl Movie(2015). Positive politeness or negative politeness is adopted to examine how to speaking between man and a beautiful girl respectively in unconventional ways, which enable them to develop friendship thanks to the politeness strategies used positive politeness and negative politeness. The "meaning of language use" in the politeness strategies is explored. The analysis of politeness in action in this film uncovers both the informational and affective dimensions of language use in structuring human relationship and friendship. Data were analyzed using the content analysis method. In this paper, used a purposive sampling technique. With this technique, only utterances with positive and negative politeness strategies were selected for inclusion in this paper. A descriptive qualitative research technique was used to analyze the data. Guidance maps were used to identify positive and negative politeness strategies. The study found that use positive and negative politeness strategies to mitigate threats. It also helps interlocutors understand the strategies they can use to communicate effectively, ensuring both sides feel valued in the conversation.

The use of politeness strategies in teacher–student interaction in the Omani EFL classroom

PurposeThis paper examines how politeness strategies are used in Omani schools and professional development classrooms. It is a qualitative study following an interactional sociolinguistic analysis approach. The study adopts Brown and Levinson (1987) model to analyse the use of politeness and the notion of face in two different contexts.Design/methodology/approachThis is a qualitative study because it includes descriptive findings. It will follow an interactional sociolinguistic analysis approach and adopts Brown and Levinson (1987) model to analyse the use of politeness and the notion of face in two different contexts. It aims at studying student–teacher interaction in two different groups: Omani private school and Professional development Academy. Two classes will be attended in the school and two classes in the Academy. A mix of female and male teachers from both groups will be observed. The first age group is young learners of grades 7 and 9 and the age range of the second group is adult learners aged between 25 and 40 years old.FindingsThe results are as follows: young learners want to be perceived with their positive face while adult learners with negative face. More face saving acts (FSA) are performed by teachers than face threatening acts (FTAs). More FTAs are performed by young students than adult students. More FSAs are performed than FTAs by female teachers than their counterparts. All teachers agreed that when their face is put into threat, they will save it even if it meant putting the student's face in threat. These results imply that there is a big awareness of politeness and face in the modern day Omani classroom in different contexts and that teachers are actually using it and trying to help students to be aware of it.Originality/valueThe findings of this study will reverberate throughout the field of education and pedagogical techniques since before this study, there has not been sufficient investigation exploring politeness strategies or FSAs of adults in this age group in Oman. In fact, there have not been sufficient studies conducted in this area in Oman within all age groups. To this purpose, this paper will contribute to the existing literature in this field by examining how politeness strategies are used and factors that directly affect their use in the classroom in a new context, Oman. Moreover, the analysis that is presented in this study conveys valuable information for future research exploring this topic but within a broader age range and a bigger sample.

Research on the Differences Between Chinese and Western Dinner Seating Culture from the Perspective of Face Theory: Based on The Dream of Red Mansions and Downton Abbey

Seating arrangements in a banquet are quite complicated because a multitude of factors need to be considered. One of the most paramount is “face”. However, individuals from different cultural backgrounds possess different understandings of face. This paper analyzes the differences between Chinese and Western seating etiquette by comparing Chinese and Western banquet seating arrangements, with The Dream of Red Mansions and Downton Abbey as the text research material. The paper also explores the underlying reasons from the perspective of positive face vs. negative face and collective face vs. individual face, combining Brown and Levinson’s Face Threatening Act (FTA) and Face Saving Theory (FST) in politeness principle. According to the analysis, the Chinese regard “respect for elders” and “distance between superiors and inferiors” as seating standards, adopting positive politeness strategy to maintain collective face, while the westerner emphasize “lady first” and “equality and mutual benefits”, adopting negative politeness strategy to maintain individual face. Understanding the differences between Chinese and Western etiquette is conducive to the exchange and integration of different nationalities and the elimination of barriers in cross-cultural communication.

BAGAIMANA MUKA DIWUJUDKAN DALAM INTERAKSI KOMUNIKASI PADA PERTUNJUKAN WAYANG SUKURAGA

<p>This research aims at describing how face expresses in communication interaction in wayang sukuraga show. The show which presents the theme of human conflict internally, namely the conflicts part of body between figure and figure such as eyes, mouth, ears, nose, hand, and foot will have a certain offering of face whether positive face or negative face. Positive face expresses in: (1) regretting to what happen; (2) want to be liked; (3) confessing on profession; and (4) want to be known by other. Meanwhile negative face expresses in: (1) freedom to choose by his/herself; (2) freedom to see; (3) freedom to take; and (4) order to find out. The Research applied qualitative descriptive method with pragmatics approach. The data was obtained from video of wayang sukuraga show. Data collection applied <em>simak</em> method. The technique applied <em>sadap</em> and <em>catat</em>. Qualitative data analysis applied with the step of reduction data, display data, and drawing conclusion. </p><p><em><br /></em><em></em></p>

Mode of Speech Revolve of Covid 19 in Bahasa Indonesia and Japanese Language in Social Media

This research aims to examine mode of speech revolve of Covid 19 in bahasa Indonesia and Japanese language in social media. The revolving of the Covid 19 that has been conveyed on social media by both policy-making officials and the general public has its own style of language that allows the power of speech in various illocutions, related to the efforts made to avoid the Covid 19 virus outbreak. The research method was carried out through qualitative descriptive and using photo-tapping and note-taking techniques. The theory used is, pragmatics refers to Leech (2003), taiguu hyougen from Pon (2004). The results of the study found that the speech revolving Covid 19 was carried out in assertive illocutionary, directive (ordering, pleading and demanding), and expressive (criticizing and praising). Violation of the maxims of quality and quantity is carried out through the ironic power of excessive and understated speech. Face threatening acts in negative face are found in speeches revolving Covid 19 in Indonesian and Japanese. Face threatening acts with positive face are only found in Indonesian.

The role of “face” in building a successful relationship

Understanding the concept and role of ‘face’ is of great importance in the process of establishing successful communication.  As for successful communication, it is a prerequisite for establishing successful relationship and achieving goals. The term ‘face’ in the sense of ‘reputation’, ‘good name’ was first used in English  language in 1876 as a translation of the Chinese term ΄diū liăn΄ in the phrase ‘preparations by which China lost face’ (Thomas, 1995:168).  Since then, the word ‘face’ has been widely used in concepts such as ‘loosing face’ and ‘saving face’. Speaking about ‘face’, Brown and Levinson  mention ‘Negative and Positive Face’. ‘Positive Face’ presents strategies of friendship and harmony and expresses a person’s wish to be positively assessed by other people. ‘Negative Face’ means a person’s wish not to be restricted by other people. However, both ‘positive face’ and ‘negative face’ may be in danger and consequently we have an act of damaging face (Brown, Levinson 1987:60). It is also worth noting that in his theory P. Brown and S. Levinson discuss politeness as ‘positive’ and ‘negative’. ‘Positive politeness’ strategies are directed to the ‘positive face’ of the listener and express solidarity, close friendship and informality, while ‘negative politeness’ strategies are directed to the ‘negative face’ of the listener and are expressed by restraint, formality and distance. Thus, understanding the concept of face and its role for successful communication and relationships is of great importance not only from a linguistic, but also from an extra-linguistic point of view.

Older adults get masked emotion priming for happy but not angry faces: evidence for a positivity effect in early perceptual processing of emotional signals

ABSTRACT In higher-level cognitive tasks, older compared to younger adults show a bias towards positive emotion information and away from negative information (a positivity effect). It is unclear whether this effect occurs in early perceptual processing. This issue is important for determining if the positivity effect is due to automatic rather than controlled processing. We tested this with older and younger adults on a positive/negative face emotion valence classification task using masked priming. Positive (happy) and negative (angry) face targets were preceded by masked repetition or valence primes with neutral face baselines. In Experiment 1, 30 younger and 30 older adults were tested with 50 ms primes. Younger adults showed repetition priming for both positive and negative targets. Older adults showed repetition priming for positive but not negative targets. Neither group showed valence priming. In Experiment 2, 30 older and 29 younger adults were tested with longer duration primes. Younger adults showed repetition priming for both positive and negative emotions, and no valence priming. Older adults only showed repetition and valence priming for positive targets. We proposed older adults’ lack of angry face priming was due to an early attention orienting strategy favouring happy expressions at the expense of angry ones.

#WeWill Fight COVID-19: A Campus Social Norms Campaign Case Study

This survey-based study examined a social norms campaign promoting mask-wearing among college students during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. More positive face mask perceptions, greater motivation to wear masks, and greater likelihood to wear masks in public were associated with respondents having seen the campaign messages and believing they were effective. Findings suggest targeting subpopulations of college students to increase message effectiveness. Practical implications include the development of campaigns that go beyond the traditional norms correcting approach.