Chinese Concept of Face and Politeness

Brown and Levinson’s politeness model has been challenged and deemed inapplicable to Chinese culture (Mao, 1994; Gu, 1990) due to differences in concept of face, especially negative face, which is less of a concern in more group-oriented cultures (Shea, 2003).

Chinese concept of face and politeness are thus reviewed and comparisons of Western and Eastern concept of face and politeness are presented in this section.

2.1.2.1 Chinese Concept of Face

In Chinese culture, there are two aspects of face, ‘面子 mianzi’ and ‘臉 lian’ (Hu, 1944). ‘面 子 mianzi’ refers to “prestige or reputation, which is either achieved through getting on in life”

(Mao, 1994: 457), or “ascribed by other members of one’s own community” (Ho, 1975: 869-870) and ‘臉 lian’ refers to “the respect of the group for a man with a good moral reputation”, which represents “the confidence of society in the integrity of ego’s moral character” (Hu, 1944: 45). Although being two characters with specific different meanings, both concepts involve public image of a person, that is “reputable, respectable images that individuals can claim for themselves from communities in which they interact, or to which they belong” (Ho, 1975: 883; Mao, 1994). Therefore, Chinese face actually involves “an interactional orientation on the part of the individual speaker toward establishing connectedness to, and seeking interpersonal harmony with, one’s own community” (Mao, 1994: 459).

Mao (1994) indicated two major differences between Chinese face and Brown and Levinson’s face. The first difference lies in the overall conceptualization of face. ‘Self-image’ is the center of Brown and Levinson’s definition of face while ‘public- ‘Self-image’ is of the Chinese face. As defined in the politeness theory, face is “the public self- image that every member wants to claim for himself” (1987: 61). The self is ‘public’ only to preserve its own interests and wants and is free from external pressure or communal judgments. In contrast, the Chinese face is closely related to the views and jud gments of the community. It “emphasizes not the accommodation of individual ‘wants’ or ‘desires’ but the harmony of individual conduct with the views and judgment of the community” (Mao, 1994: 460).

The second difference is their different contents of face. Gu (1990) noted that negative face in the western definition cannot be applied to the Chinese notion of face since acts threatening the interlocutor’s negative face, such as offering, inviting and promising, will not be considered as impeding a Chinese’s freedom, but as sincere behaviors. According to Mao (1994), Brown and Levinson’s negative face refers to a person’s need to be autonomous from others while the Chinese mianzi refers to a person’s desire for public acknowledgement of their prestige or reputation. Mianzi is originated from the Confucian tradition that

de-emphasizes individuals and subordinates them to the group (Tu, 1985), unlike individuals that seek freedom in the western culture. Even though lian identifies, similar to positive face, an individual’s desire to be liked and to be approved of by the others, it goes further and involves restriction of “the socially endorsed code of conduct” (Mao, 1994: 461).

The concept of Chinese face, therefore, converges with Goffman’s (1967) that face refers to a ‘public property’ that an individual can earn through interactions when in compliance with social norms (Mao, 1994; Yu, 2003). Furthermore, Chinese face is reciprocal in that one can enhance their own face when giving mianzi to others (Mao, 1994). Simply put, Brown and Levinson focused the concept of face on “an individualistic, self-oriented image”

while Chinese face on “communal, interpersonal” image (Zhang, 1995; Yu, 2003: 1685).

However, Yu (2003) contends that the difference between the two concepts is not that radical. Although the Brown and Levinson’s face starts from individual desires and the Chinese face starts from social expectations, they lie in the same end in which both polite facework involve actions whose goal is the “interpersonal harmony” (Mao, 1994) as Yu (2003:

1687) claimed: “both cultures behave according to socially approved norms.”

2.1.2.2 Chinese Politeness Principle

The concept of Chinese politeness “limao” is derived from Confucius’ promotion of restoring the social hierarchy and order of the slavery system of the Zhou Dynasty, and came to bear the duties of enhancing social harmony and lessening interpersonal tension or conflict in modern Chinese. Limao includes a tendency to denigrate oneself and respect the other. The essential elements of limao inherited are four notions: respectfulness, modesty, attitudinal warmth, and refinement (Gu, 1990: 239).

According to the four notions of Chinese politeness, Gu (1990) proposed four maxims of Politeness Principle, na mely the Self-denigration Maxim, the Address Maxim, the Tact

Maxim and the Generosity Maxim (p. 245). Based on the notions of respectfulness and modesty, the Self-denigration Maxim includes two submaxims, denigrate self and elevate other. To break the maxim of denigrating self is considered as being impolite or rude and to break the maxim of elevating other is considered as being ‘arrogant’, ‘boasting’, or ‘self-conceited’ (p. 246). Based on the notions of respectfulness and attitudinal warmth, the Address Maxim refers to an appropriate address term paid to the interlocutor. The maxim helps to “establish or maintain social bonds, strengthen solidarity, and control social distance”

(p.249) since the act of addressing involves recognition of the interlocutor’s social status and identification of the social relation between the interlocutors. Misuse of addressing term implies rudeness or destruction of social order. The Generosity and Tact Maxims are a modified version of Leech’s (1983). The underlying no tions are attitudinal warmth and refinement. As two complementary maxims, while a speaker tries to maximize benefit to other (in compliance with the Generosity Maxim), the hearer tries to minimize cost to other (in compliance with the Tact Maxim). Breaking the maxims would risk being considered stingy and greedy respectively.