Positive face needs are a person’s need to be liked and accepted and are more commonly (although not exclusively), associated with informal language. Respecting positive face needs entails using language that shows a low social distance (closeness, rapport, solidarity and intimacy), with the listener, reader or other interlocutor.
What are positive face needs and how can we respect them?
Respecting positive face needs entails using language that shows a low social distance (closeness, rapport, solidarity and intimacy), with the listener, reader or other interlocutor.
What is positive face in psychology?
Positive face. The positive face is defined as the individual desire of a person that his/ her personality is appreciated by others.
What is a face need?
This brings us to the topic of face needs. One’s face need is the sense of social value that is experienced during social interactions. There are two types of face needs; positive face needs and negative face needs.
What is positive face redress?
In positive politeness, the speaker's goal is to address the positive face needs of the hearer, thus enhancing the hearer's positive face. This is also known as positive face redress.
What are examples of positive face?
The positive face is defined as the individual desire of a person that his/ her personality is appreciated by others. Furthermore, this includes the way a person wants to be perceived by his/ her social group. One example for positive face is the appreciation of individual achievements.
What is positive face and negative face?
Negative Face- is the need to be independent, to have freedom of action, and not to be imposed on by others. ✦ Positive Face- the need for self-image to be accepted, appreciated and approved of by others. To be treated as a member of the same group and to know that his wants are shared by others.
What is positive face Brown and Levinson?
Brown and Levinson defined positive face as an individual's desire to be liked, admired, ratified, and related to positively. Maintaining a positive face means maintaining and exhibiting a positive self-image to the rest of society.
What is positive and negative politeness?
A positive politeness strategy seeks to minimize threat to hearer's positive face and make the hearer feel good about him/herself. A negative politeness strategy is avoidance based and it presumes that the speaker will be imposing on the hearer.
What are the three face needs?
These are fellowship face, competence face, and autonomy face. Fellowship face is the need to have others like and accept you. This liking and acceptance shows that we have the ability to get along well with others, which is important for succeeding in a society.
What is positive politeness example?
Examples of positive politeness include compliments, and might also include statements such as, "I really like the way you've done this," or, "It took me forever to figure this out, but what I eventually came to was…" or,"You know it's always important to me to do the best job I can, and I know the same is true for you ...
What is Brown and Levinson's theory?
The Brown and Levinson (1987) theory posits that the combination of social distance, power ratio, and task imposition determine politeness weightiness perception regardless of the culture.
What is Brown and Levinson politeness theory?
Brown and Levinson s theory of politeness (1978, 1987) is a detailed and large scale work that endeavors to explain and predict polite language behavior in all languages and cultures.
What are the 4 politeness strategies?
In order to maintain and save person's face, people are supposed to use politeness strategies. Brown and Levinson (1987) suggest that there are four types of politeness strategies. They are bald on-record, negative politeness, positive politeness, and off-record strategy.
What is face in politeness?
Politeness theory itself was based on a highly influential paper “On Face-Work” by Goffman (1955, 1967). According to Goffman (1967, p. 5), face is “the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact”.
What are face-threatening acts?
A Face-threatening Act (FTA) is an act (linguistic or non-linguistic) that threatens someone's positive or negative face. It may be bald or mitigated, and it may be on record or off record.
What is face saving acts?
Face-saving is an action designed not to cause embarrassment to a person while holding a negotiation or a conversation (Folger, Poole & Stutman, 2008).
What is a positive and negative face?
Positive and negative face are defined as the two components of an individual's public self-image ( face (concept) ). Both positive and negative face describe the different levels of face needs.
What is a negative face?
Negative face. Negative face describes the basic personal rights of an individual, including his/ her personal freedom as well as freedom of action . One's negative face is a neglection of all factors which represent a threat towards individual rights.
Who was the first person to subdivide an individual's public self-image into positive and negative face?
The linguists Stephen Levinson and Penelope Brown were the first to sub-divide an individual's public self-image into positive and negative face (concept). This distinction is based on Erving Goffman's definition of face. Levinson and Brown distinguish two levels of face based on an individual's basic needs as a social being ( negative face) and an individual's personal desires ( positive face ). In order to protect one's own and the adressee's face, one has to take care of both levels.
What is the negative face of a person?
A person’s negative face is the need to be independent, to have freedom of action, and not to be imposed on by others. The world “negative” here doesn’t mean “bad”, it’s just the opposite pole from “positive”. A person’s positive face is the need to be accepted, even liked, by others, to be treated as a member of the same group, and to know that his or her wants are shared by others.
What does it mean when someone's face is negative?
A person’s negative face is the need to be independent, to have freedom of action, and not to be imposed on by others. The world “negative” here doesn’t mean “bad”, it’s just the opposite pole from “positive”.
What is a face saving act?
So, a face saving act which is oriented to the person’s negative face will the tend to show deference, emphasize the importance of the other’s time or concerns, and even include an apology for the imposition or interruption. This is also called negative politeness.
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What is negative face?
Negative face reflects an individual's need for freedom of action, freedom from imposition, and the right to make one's own decisions. Together, these types of face respect the face needs covered previously, which include an individual's face needs for autonomy and competence. This theory relies on the assumption that most speech acts inherently ...
How does politeness enhance self-image?
Where positive politeness enhances the hearer's positive and consistent self-image through recognizing the hearer's need for his or her wishes and desires to be appreciated socially, negative politeness addresses the hearer's need for freedom of action and freedom from imposition in making his or her own decisions.
What are the three variables that determine the weight of a face threatening act?
The weight of a face-threatening act is determined by considering the combination of three variables: power, distance, and rank . Power refers to the perceived power dynamic between speaker and hearer.
Is face culturally specific?
Several researchers have pointed out that face concerns are culturally specific. Some work considers face as relational and interactional, rather than an individual, phenomenon. This means that the social self, or face, is achieved in relationships with others via interaction. Positive and negative face are re-conceptualized in terms of the contradictory tensions between connection with and separation from others.
Is politeness a part of unoffensive communication?
This theory relies on the assumption that most speech acts inherently threaten either the speaker or the hearer's face, and that politeness is therefore a necessary component of unoffensive, i.e. non-face threatening, communication and involves the redressing of positive and negative face. Drawing from these assumptions, researchers have identified ...
Glossary of Grammatical and Rhetorical Terms
As most children learn at a young age (and as this unusual sign in South Africa demonstrates), please is one of the most significant politeness markers used in imperatives . (Steve Stringer Photography/Getty Images)
Positive Politeness Strategies
Positive politeness strategies are intended to avoid giving offense by highlighting friendliness. These strategies include juxtaposing criticism with compliments, establishing common ground, and using jokes, nicknames, honorifics, tag questions, special discourse markers ( please ), and in-group jargon and slang .
Negative Politeness Strategies
Negative political strategies are intended to avoid giving offense by showing deference. These strategies include questioning, hedging, and presenting disagreements as opinions.
The Face Saving Theory of Politeness
The best known and most widely used approach to the study of politeness is the framework introduced by Penelope Brown and Stephen C. Levinson in Questions and Politeness (1978); reissued with corrections as Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1987).
A Definition of Politeness
"What exactly is politeness? In one sense, all politeness can be viewed as deviation from maximally efficient communication; as violations (in some sense) of Grice’s (1975) conversational maxims [see cooperative principle ].
Orienting to Different Kinds of Politeness
"People who grow up in communities that are more oriented to negative face wants and negative politeness may find that they are perceived as aloof or cold if they move somewhere where positive politeness is emphasized more.
Variables in Degrees of Politeness
"Brown and Levinson list three 'sociological variables' that speakers employ in choosing the degree of politeness to use and in calculating the amount of threat to their own face:
What is positive politeness?
Positive politeness strategies seek to minimize the threat to the hearer's positive face. These strategies are used to make the hearer feel good about themselves, their interests or possessions, and are most usually used in situations where the audience knows each other fairly well, or an individuals positive face needs, or self-worth, have to be met. In addition to hedging and attempts to avoid conflict, some strategies of positive politeness include statements of friendship, solidarity, compliments, and the following examples from Brown and Levinson:
What is the meaning of the word "face"?
The concept of face was derived from Chinese into English in the 19th century. “Face” conceptualized as an individual’s positive claim of social values in socializing contact was introduced into academia by Erving Goffman through his theories of "face" and " facework ". According to Brown and Levinson's assumption in politeness theory based on Goffman's “face”, one's face is categorized into two forms: positive and negative. Brown and Levinson defined positive face two ways: as "the want of every member that his wants be desirable to at least some others executors" (p. 62), or alternatively, "the positive consistent self-image or ' personality ' (crucially including the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by interactants" (p. 61). Negative face was defined as "the want of every 'competent adult member' that his actions be unimpeded by others", or "the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights to non-distraction—i.e. the freedom of action and freedom from imposition". Whereas positive face involves a desire for connection with others, negative face needs include autonomy and independence.
What is favor seeking?
Favor seeking, or a speaker asking the hearer for a favor, is a common example of negative politeness strategies in use. Held observes three main stages in favor-seeking: the preparatory phase, the focal phase, and the final phase:
What are the sociological factors that affect the choice of politeness strategy?
Three sociological factors affect the choice of politeness strategy and the seriousness of the face threatening action: distance between speaker and listener; the power difference between the speaker and listener; and ranking of the seriousness of the face threat.
Why is politeness important?
Although the politeness theory originated from the curiosity of linguistics and language forming, scholars are beginning to see its other benefits: its ability to not only help with interpersonal relationships, workplace environments, and beyond.
What is a face threatening act?
A face threatening act is an act that inherently damages the face of the addressee or the speaker by acting in opposition to the wants and desires of the other. Face threatening acts can be verbal (using words/language), paraverbal (conveyed in the characteristics of speech such as tone, inflection, etc.), or non-verbal (facial expression, etc.). Based on the terms of conversation in social interactions, face-threatening acts are at times inevitable. At minimum, there must be at least one of the face threatening acts associated with an utterance. It is also possible to have multiple acts working within a single utterance.
When delivering bad news, the speaker has a lot to consider regarding his or her own face and the face of
When delivering bad news the speaker has a lot to consider regarding his or her own face and the face of the hearer. In 2015, Miroslav Sirota and Marie Juanchich conducted a study on uncertainty communication with negative outcomes. The authors suggest "First, speakers making a prediction may intend not only to inform about a probability level, but also to manage the hearer 's faces or their own...Second, speakers perform face-managing intentions by altering (e.g. lessening or magnifying) the explicitly communicated probablility of a negative outcome...Thus, politeness theory posits that speakers use uncertainty quantifiers to pursue informative intentions and also to sugar-coat threatening news to manage the hearers ' or their own faces."
Definition
- Positive and negative face are defined as the two components of an individual's public self-image (face (concept)). Both positive and negative facedescribe the different levels of face needs.
Definition of Terms
- The linguists Stephen Levinson and Penelope Brown were the first to sub-divide an individual's public self-image into positive and negative face (concept). This distinction is based on Erving Goffman's definition of face. Levinson and Brown distinguish two levels of face based on an individual's basic needs as a social being (negative face) and an individual's personal desires (p…
Negative Face
- Negative facedescribes the basic personal rights of an individual, including his/ her personal freedom as well as freedom of action. One's negative face is a neglection of all factors which represent a threat towards individual rights. One popular example is the freedom of speech, which includes one's need not to be interrupted by others while speaking.
Positive Face
- The positive faceis defined as the individual desire of a person that his/ her personality is appreciated by others. Furthermore, this includes the way a person wants to be perceived by his/ her social group. One example for positive face is the appreciation of individual achievements. According to this definition, a painter would, for instance, de...
See Also
Literature
- Brown, Penelope und Levinson, Stephen (1978): Universals in Language Usage: Politeness Phenomena. In: Goody, E. N. [Hrsg.]: Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction. Cambridge: Ca...
- Goffman, Erving (1967): On Face-Work. An Analysis of Ritual Elements in Social Interaction. In: Ders.: Interaction Ritual. New York: Doubleday. 5-45.
- Brown, Penelope und Levinson, Stephen (1978): Universals in Language Usage: Politeness Phenomena. In: Goody, E. N. [Hrsg.]: Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction. Cambridge: Ca...
- Goffman, Erving (1967): On Face-Work. An Analysis of Ritual Elements in Social Interaction. In: Ders.: Interaction Ritual. New York: Doubleday. 5-45.
- Turner, Ken und Sbisa, E. (2013) [Hrsg.]: Handbook of Pragmatics: Pragmatics of Speech Actions. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
- Watts, Richard [Hrsg.] (1992): Politeness in Language. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
