Face (self image)
Encyclopedia
Face, idiomatically
Idiom
Idiom is an expression, word, or phrase that has a figurative meaning that is comprehended in regard to a common use of that expression that is separate from the literal meaning or definition of the words of which it is made...

 meaning dignity
Dignity
Dignity is a term used in moral, ethical, and political discussions to signify that a being has an innate right to respect and ethical treatment. It is an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inalienable rights...

/prestige, is a fundamental concept in the fields of sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

, sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and the effects of language use on society...

, semantics
Semantics
Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....

, politeness theory
Politeness theory
Politeness theory is the theory that accounts for the redressing of the affronts to face posed by face-threatening acts to addressees. First formulated in 1978 by Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson, politeness theory has since expanded academia’s perception of politeness...

, psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

, political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...

, communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...

, and Face Negotiation Theory
Face negotiation theory
Face Negotiation Theory is a theory first postulated by Stella Ting-Toomey in 1985 to explain how different cultures manage conflict and communicate....

.

Definitions

Although Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang was a Chinese writer and inventor. His informal but polished style in both Chinese and English made him one of the most influential writers of his generation, and his compilations and translations of classic Chinese texts into English were bestsellers in the West.-Youth:Lin was born in...

 (1895-1976) claimed "Face cannot be translated or defined", compare these definitions:
The term face may be defined as the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact. Face is an image of self delineated in terms of approved social attributes. (Goffman 1955:213)

Face is the respectability and/or deference which a person can claim for himself from others, by virtue of the relative position he occupies in his social network and the degree to which he is judged to have functioned adequately in that position as well as acceptably in his general conduct. (Ho 1975:883)

[Face] is something that is emotionally invested, and that can be lost, maintained, or enhanced, and must be constantly attended to in interaction. In general, people cooperate (and assume each other's cooperation) in maintaining face in interaction, such cooperation being based on the mutual vulnerability of face. (Brown and Levinson 1978:66)

Face is a sense of worth that comes from knowing one's status and reflects concern with the congruency between one's performance or appearance and one's real worth. (Huang 1987:71)

"Face" means 'sociodynamic valuation', a lexical hyponym of words meaning 'prestige; dignity; honor; respect; status'. (Carr 1993:90)

Terminology

"The concept of face is, of course, Chinese in origin" (Ho 1975:867), yet many languages have "face" terms that metaphorically mean "prestige; honor; reputation." Marcel Mauss
Marcel Mauss
Marcel Mauss was a French sociologist. The nephew of Émile Durkheim, Mauss' academic work traversed the boundaries between sociology and anthropology...

, who sociologically studied the Kwakwaka'wakw
Kwakwaka'wakw
The Kwakwaka'wakw are an Indigenous group of First Nations peoples, numbering about 5,500, who live in British Columbia on northern Vancouver Island and the adjoining mainland and islands.Kwakwaka'wakw translates as "Those who speak Kwak'wala", describing the collective nations within the area that...

 (formerly known as Kwakiutl
Kwakiutl
The term Kwakiutl, historically applied to the entire Kwakwaka'wakw ethno-linguistic group of originally 28 tribes, comes from one of the Kwakwaka'wakw tribes, the Kwagu'ł or Kwagyeulth, at Fort Rupert, with whom Franz Boas did most of his anthropological work and whose Indian Act Band government...

) and Haida nations in British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

, interpreted the Kwak'wala
Kwak'wala
Kwak'wala is the Indigenous language spoken by the Kwakwaka'wakw. It belongs to the Wakashan language family. There are about 250 Kwak'wala speakers today, which amounts to 5% of the Kwakwaka'wakw population...

 word q'elsem (lit. "rotten face") meaning "stingy potlatch
Potlatch
A potlatch is a gift-giving festival and primary economic system practiced by indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada and United States. This includes Heiltsuk Nation, Haida, Nuxalk, Tlingit, Makah, Tsimshian, Nuu-chah-nulth, Kwakwaka'wakw, and Coast Salish cultures...

-giver; one who gives no feast."
Kwakiutl and Haida noblemen have the same notion of 'face' as the Chinese mandarin or officer. It is said of one of the great mythical chiefs who gave no feast that he had a 'rotten face.' The expression is more apt than it is even in China; for to lose one's face is to lose one's spirit, which is truly the 'face', the dancing mask, the right to incarnate a spirit and wear an emblem or totem. It is the veritable persona which is at stake, and it can be lost in the potlatch just as it can be lost in the game of gift-giving, in war, or through some error in ritual. (1954:38)

Michael Carr (1992, 1993) lexicographically investigated "face; prestige" dictionary forms in Chinese, Japanese, and English. Within this sample, Chinese dictionaries include 98 forms, e.g., sipo lian 撕破臉 (lit. "rip up face") "have no consideration for someone's feelings"; Japanese dictionaries
Japanese dictionaries
Japanese dictionaries have a history that began over 1300 years ago when Japanese Buddhist priests, who wanted to understand Chinese sutras, adapted Chinese character dictionaries. Present-day Japanese lexicographers are exploring computerized editing and electronic dictionaries...

 list 89, e.g., kao o uru 顔を売る (lit. "sell face") "become popular; gain influence"; and English dictionaries include 5 forms, e.g., lose face (borrowed from Chinese diulian 丟臉 "lose face"). Carr found that the Chinese and Japanese lexicons have roughly equal numbers of words for "losing face" and "saving face", while English has more for "saving face."

Chinese

Two influential Chinese authors explained "face." Lu Xun
Lu Xun
Lu Xun or Lu Hsün , was the pen name of Zhou Shuren , one of the major Chinese writers of the 20th century. Considered by many to be the leading figure of modern Chinese literature, he wrote in baihua as well as classical Chinese...

 referred to the missionary Arthur Henderson Smith's (1894:16-18) interpretation.
The term "face" keeps cropping up in our conversation, and it seems such a simple expression that I doubt whether many people give it much thought. Recently, however, we have heard this word on the lips of foreigners too, who seem to be studying it. They find it extremely hard to understand, but believe that "face" is the key to the Chinese spirit and that grasping it will be like grabbing a queue twenty-four years ago [when wearing a queue
Queue (hairstyle)
The queue or cue is a hairstyle in which the hair is worn long and gathered up into a ponytail. It was worn traditionally by certain Native American groups and the Manchu of Manchuria.-Manchu Queue:...

 was compulsory] – everything else will follow. (1934, 1959:129)

Lin Yutang considered the psychology of "face."
Interesting as the Chinese physiological face is, the psychological face makes a still more fascinating study. It is not a face that can be washed or shaved, but a face that can be "granted" and "lost" and "fought for" and "presented as a gift." Here we arrive at the most curious point of Chinese social psychology. Abstract and intangible, it is yet the most delicate standard by which Chinese social intercourse is regulated. (1935: 199-200)

Lin refers to liu mianzi 留面子 "grant face; give (someone) a chance to regain lost honor", shi mianzi 失面子 "lose face", zheng mianzi 爭面子 "fight for face; keeping up with the Joneses
Keeping up with the Joneses
"Keeping up with the Joneses" is an idiom in many parts of the English-speaking world referring to the comparison to one's neighbor as a benchmark for social caste or the accumulation of material goods...

", and gei mianzi 給面子 "give face; show respect (for someone's feelings)."

The Chinese language
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

 has three common words meaning "face":
  • mian
  • lian
  • yan .


Mian 面 "face; personal esteem; countenance; surface; side" occurs in words like:
  • mianzi 面子 "face; side; reputation; self-respect; prestige, honor; social standing"
  • mianmu 面目 (lit. "face eyes") "face; appearance; respect; social standing; prestige; honor"
  • mianpi 面皮 (lit. "face skin") "facial skin; complexion; feelings; sensitivity; sense of shame"
  • timian 体面 (lit. "body face") "face; good looking; honor; dignity; prestige"
  • qingmian 情面 (lit. "feelings face") "face; prestige; favor; kindness; partiality"

Mianmu, which occurs in the Shijing, Guanzi, and other Chinese classics, is the oldest Chinese word for figurative "face" (Carr 1992:43). David Yau-fai Ho (1974:241) describes timian as "an expression without an exact equivalent in English", meaning "the social front, the ostensible display of one's social standing to the public. It is both a prerogative and an implicit obligation for the socially prominent to be particular about." Mianzi is a measurable and quantifiable concept of "face." Hsien-chin Hu says it,
can be borrowed, struggled for, added to, padded, — all terms indicating a gradual increase in volume. It is built up through initial high position, wealth, power, ability, through cleverly establishing social ties to a number of prominent people, as well as through avoidance of acts that would cause unfavorable comment. (1944:61)


Lian 臉 "face; countenance; respect; reputation; prestige" is seen in several "face" words:
  • lianshang 臉上 (lit. "face on/above") "one's face; honor; respect"
  • lianmian 臉面 (lit. "face face") "face; self-respect; prestige; influence"
  • lianpi 臉皮 (lit. "face skin") "face; sensitivity; compassion"


Hu (1944:51-52) contrasts meiyou lian 沒有臉 (lit. "without face") "audacious; wanton; shameless" as "the most severe condemnation that can be made of a person" and buyao lian 不要臉 (lit. "don't want face") "shameless; selfishly inconsiderate" as "a serious accusation meaning that ego does not care what society thinks of his character, that he is ready to obtain benefits for himself in defiance of moral standards."

Yan 顏 "face; prestige; reputation; honor" occurs in the common expression diu yan 丟顏 and the words:
  • yanhou 顏厚 (lit. "face thick") or houyan 厚顏 "thick-skinned; brazen; shameless; impudent"
  • yanmian 顏面 (lit. "face face") "face; honor; prestige"

Chinese uses yan less often in expressing "face; prestige" than either mian or lian.

Carr (1992:58-60) summarizes four common Chinese lexical patterns for "face" words. First, the lexicon antithetically modifies all three "face" words with hou 厚 "thick; deep; great" and bao or bo 薄 "thin; slight; weak" to describe "(in)sensitivity to prestige", for example, mianpi hou "thick-skinned; shameless" and mianpi bao "thin-skinned; diffident." Second, owing to the importance of the visible face, kan 看 "see; look" meaning "have consideration for" and buhaokan 不好看 "not good looking" describe "face." Third, several expressions reciprocally describe you 有 "having" or meiyou 沒有 "not having" "face", such as dajia you mianzi "everybody has mutual honor" and meiyou mianzi "lacking prestige." Fourth, "losing face" can be expressed with the common "lose" verb shi 失 and the rarer diu 丟, for instance, shi mianzi and diu mianzi "lose face; lose prestige."

Recent studies of Chinese "face" have principally accepted Hu Hsien-chin's original distinction between a person's mianzi "social status" and lian "moral character." Hu (1944:45) dichotomized mianzi as "a reputation achieved through getting on in life, through success and ostentation" versus lian which "represents the confidence of society in the integrity of ego's moral character, the loss of which makes it impossible for him to function properly within the community." Ho qualified this dichotomy:
although the distinction between the two sets of criteria for judging face – based on judgments of character and, broadly, of the amoral aspects of social performance – is justified, it cannot be anchored to a linguistic distinction between the two terms, lien and mien-tzu, as proposed by Hu. However, we may continue to use these terms in the senses that Hu has defined. (1975:868)

On the basis of experiments showing that Chinese high school students defined losses of mianzi and lian interchangeably, while university students distinguished them, Huang Shuanfan concluded that:
Succinctly, among college subjects, loss of mianzi is more definitely tied to failure to measure up to one's sense of self-esteem or to what is expected by others, whereas loss of lian is closely tied to transgression of social codes. Hu's (1944) forty year old distinction between the two Chinese concepts of faces appears to stand very well, even today. (1987:73)

Lian is the confidence of society in a person's moral character, while mianzi represents social perceptions of a person's prestige
Prestige (sociology)
Prestige is a word commonly used to describe reputation or esteem, though it has three somewhat related meanings that, to some degree, may be contradictory. Which meaning applies depends on the historical context and the person using the word....

. For a person to maintain face is important with Chinese social relations because face translates into power and influence and affects goodwill. A loss of lian would result in a loss of trust within a social network
Social network
A social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes", which are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.Social...

, while a loss of mianzi would likely result in a loss of authority
Authority
The word Authority is derived mainly from the Latin word auctoritas, meaning invention, advice, opinion, influence, or command. In English, the word 'authority' can be used to mean power given by the state or by academic knowledge of an area .-Authority in Philosophy:In...

.

Two "face"-related concepts in Chinese social relations
Chinese social relations
Chinese social relations are social relations typified by a reciprocal social network. Often social obligations within the network are characterized in familial terms. The individual link within the social network is known by guanxi and the feeling within the link is known by the term ganqing...

 are guanxi
Guanxi
Guanxi describes the basic dynamic in personalized networks of influence, and is a central idea in Chinese society. In Western media, the pinyin romanization of this Chinese word is becoming more widely used instead of the two common translations—"connections" and "relationships"—as neither of...

 "connections; relationships" and ganqing
Ganqing
Gǎnqíng is an important concept in social relations in Chinese culture which is loosely translated as "feeling" and is related to the concept of guānxi . Gǎnqíng reflects the tenor of a social relationship between two people or two groups...

 "feelings."

English

The English semantic field
Semantic field
A semantic field is a technical term in the discipline of linguistics to describe a set of words grouped by meaning in a certain way. The term is also used in other academic disciplines, such as anthropology and computational semiotics.-Definition and usage:...

 for "face" words meaning "prestige; honor" is smaller than the corresponding Chinese field, but historical dictionaries more accurately record its history. The Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...

(2nd ed., 1989) documents how the English community in China originated lose face and save face in the late 19th century, and how morphological
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...

 variants like face-saver subsequently developed.

Lose face is a linguistic borrowing from Chinese diulian 丟臉 "lose face." The OED2 Face 10 definition distinguishes meanings between native 10a. "Outward show; assumed or factitious appearance; disguise, pretence; an instance of this; a pretext" (for instance, to put a good face on) and borrowed:
10b. to save one's face: see save v. 8f; also to save face; to lose face [tr. Chinese tiu lien]: to be humiliated, lose one's credit, good name, or reputation; similarly, loss of face. Hence face = reputation, good name.

Robert Hart
Sir Robert Hart, 1st Baronet
Sir Robert Hart, 1st Baronet, GCMG , was a British consular official in China, who served as the second Inspector General of China's Imperial Maritime Custom Service from 1863 to 1911.-Early life:...

 originally translated lose face in a January 23, 1876 Zongli Yamen
Zongli Yamen
Zongli Yamen was the government body in charge of foreign affairs in imperial China during the late Qing dynasty. It was established by Prince Gong in 1861, following the Convention of Peking. It was abolished in 1901 and replaced with a Foreign Office of ministry rank.The former site of the...

 customs memorandum, "The Inspector General's Memorandum Concerning Commercial Relations" (Appendix II in Hart 1901:182-251).
The country begins to feel that Government consented to arrangements by which China has lost face; the officials have long been conscious that they are becoming ridiculous in the eyes of the people, seeing that where a foreigner is concerned they can neither enforce a Chinese right, nor redress a Chinese grievance, even on Chinese soil. (1901:225)

Loss of face occurs in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

(August 3, 1929): "Each wishes to concede only what can be conceded without loss of 'face'."

Save face was coined from lose face applying the semantic opposition between lose and save. The OED defines Save 8 "To keep, protect or guard (a thing) from damage, loss, or destruction", and elaborates,
8f. to save one's face: to avoid being disgraced or humiliated. Similarly, to save (another's) face. Hence save-face adj. = face-saving … Originally used by the English community in China, with reference to the continual devices among the Chinese to avoid incurring or inflicting disgrace. The exact phrase appears not to occur in Chinese, but ‘to lose face’ (tiu lien), and ‘for the sake of his face’, are common.

For the earliest usage examples, the OED gives the following. Save one's face is recorded in the Westminster Gazette
Westminster Gazette
The Westminster Gazette was an influential Liberal newspaper based in London. It was known for publishing sketches and short stories, including early works by Raymond Chandler, Anthony Hope and Saki, and travel writing by Rupert Brooke. One of its editors was caricaturist and political cartoonist...

(April 5, 1898): "Unquestionably the process of saving one's face leads to curious results in other countries than China." Save-face is found in Chambers Journal of Literature, Science and Arts (1917): "The civilian native staff had bolted at the first sign of trouble, 'going to report to the authorities' being their 'save face' for it!" Face-saving first appears in Enoch A. Bennett's Lilian (1922): "She had been trapped beyond any chance of a face-saving lie." Face-saver, defined as "something that 'saves one's face'," originated in Edgar Snow
Edgar Snow
Edgar P. Snow was an American journalist known for his books and articles on Communism in China and the Chinese Communist revolution...

's Scorched Earth (1941): "As a face-saver, however, Doihara was given enough support, from the Kwantung Army in Manchuria." Carr (1993:74) notes, "It is significant that the earliest usages for English lose face, save face, save-face and face-saver refer to China, while later ones are more international in application."

By expanding "lose face" into "save face", English developed oppositely from Chinese, which has many "lose face" collocation
Collocation
In corpus linguistics, collocation defines a sequence of words or terms that co-occur more often than would be expected by chance. In phraseology, collocation is a sub-type of phraseme. An example of a phraseological collocation is the expression strong tea...

s, but none literally meaning "save face." Yao mianzi 要面子 "eager to gain reputation; be concerned about appearances" is (Hu 1944:58) "the closest Chinese approximation" for "save face."

The underlying reason for this difference is that English "face" lacks the sociological contrast between Chinese lian and mianzi. Since Chinese lian is ethically absolute while mianzi is socially quantitative, losing the former is more significant. According to Huang:
The fact that Chinese lexicalizes losing face (丟臉, 沒面子), but not gaining face is a potent reminder that losing face has far more serious implications for one's sense of self-esteem or decency than gaining face. (1987:71)

Ho explains how "losing" one's "face" is more sociodynamically significant than "saving" it.
Previous writers on face have treated losing face and gaining face simply as if they were opposite outcomes in a social encounter and have thus failed to notice the basic difference between two social processes that are involved. In the first instance, while it is meaningful to speak of both losing and gaining mien-tzu it is meaningful to speak only of losing lien. One does not speak of gaining lien because, regardless of one's station in life, one is expected to behave in accordance with the precepts of the culture; correctly conceptualized, exemplary conduct adds not to one's lien, but to one's mien-tzu. (1975:870)

"Losing face" brings into question one's moral decency and societal adequacy, but not "gaining face."

The lose verb in lose face means "fail to maintain" (cf. lose one's life), while the save in save face means "avoid loss/damage" (cf. save one's honor). "The English creation of save face as the opposite of lose face was arbitrary because lose has other antonyms: win, find, keep, catch, maintain, preserve, gain, and regain", Carr (1993:77) notes, "Speakers occasionally use the last three (esp. gain) regarding face 'prestige', though less frequently than save." Another usage example is give face, which is included in the Wiktionary
Wiktionary
Wiktionary is a multilingual, web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in 158 languages...

 but not the OED2.

Among the English words of Chinese origin, lose face is a uncommon verb phrase
Verb phrase
In linguistics, a verb phrase or VP is a syntactic unit composed of at least one verb and the dependents of that verb. One can distinguish between two types of VPs, finite VPs and non-finite VPs . While phrase structure grammars acknowledge both, dependency grammars reject the existence of a...

 and a unique semantic loan
Semantic loan
A semantic loan is a process of borrowing semantic meaning from another language, very similar to the formation of calques. In this case, however, the complete word in the borrowing language already exists; the change is that its meaning is extended to include another meaning its existing...

 translation. Most Anglo-Chinese borrowings are noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...

s (Yuan 1981:250), with a few exceptions such as to kowtow
Kowtow
Kowtow is the act of deep respect shown by kneeling and bowing so low as to have one's head touching the ground. An alternative Chinese term is ketou, however the meaning is somewhat altered: kòu originally meant "knock with reverence", whereas kē has the general meaning of "touch upon ".In Han...

, to Shanghai
Shanghaiing
Shanghaiing refers to the practice of conscripting men as sailors by coercive techniques such as trickery, intimidation, or violence. Those engaged in this form of kidnapping were known as crimps. Until 1915, unfree labor was widely used aboard American merchant ships...

, to brainwash, and lose face. English face meaning "prestige; honor" is the only case of a Chinese semantic loan
Semantic loan
A semantic loan is a process of borrowing semantic meaning from another language, very similar to the formation of calques. In this case, however, the complete word in the borrowing language already exists; the change is that its meaning is extended to include another meaning its existing...

. Semantic loans extend an indigenous word's meaning in conformity with a foreign model (e.g., French realiser "achieve; create; construct" used in the sense of English realize). The vast majority of English words from Chinese are ordinary loanwords with regular phonemic adaptation (e.g., chop suey
Chop suey
Chop suey is a Chinese dish consisting of meat and eggs, cooked quickly with vegetables such as bean sprouts, cabbage, and celery and bound in a starch-thickened sauce...

< Cantonese tsap-sui 雜碎 "miscellaneous pieces"). A few are calque
Calque
In linguistics, a calque or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal, word-for-word or root-for-root translation.-Calque:...

s where a borrowing is blended with native elements (e.g., chopsticks < Pidgin chop "quick, fast" < Cantonese kap 急 "quick" + stick). Face meaning "prestige" is technically a "loan synonym" owing to semantic overlap between the native English meaning "outward semblance; effrontery" and the borrowed Chinese meaning "prestige; dignity."

John Orr (1953) coined the term "invisible exports" to describe how French forme, ouverte, and courir borrowed the sports meanings of English form, open, and run. Chinese lose face is an imperceptible English import because it appears to be a predictable semantic extension of face, and not a noticeable foreign borrowing. This invisible face "prestige; status" loan is, Chan and Kwok (1985:60) explain, "so firmly established in the English vocabulary that the average native speaker is unaware of its Chinese origin."

When face acquired its Chinese sense of "prestige; honor", it filled a lexical gap
Lexical gap
A lexical gap or lacuna is an absence of a word in a particular language. Types of lexical gaps include untranslatability and missing inflections.-Untranslatability:...

 in the English lexicon. Chan and Kwok write,
The Chinese has supplied a specific 'name' for a 'thing' embodying qualities not expressed or possibly not fully expressed, by a number of terms in English. The aptness of the figurative extension has probably also played a part (1985:61-62).

Carr concludes,
The nearest English synonyms of the apt figurative face are prestige, honor, respect, dignity, status, reputation, social acceptance, or good name. Ho (1975:874-880) explains how 'face' is a more basic meaning than 'status', 'dignity', or 'honor'. 'Prestige' appears to be semantically closest to 'face', however a person can be said to have face but not prestige, or vice versa. Prestige is not necessary; one can easily live without it, but hardly without "face." (1993:87-88)

Arabic

in Arabic the expression 'Hifz Ma'a Wajh' is used widely, it translates literally to 'save(Hifz) face(Wajh) water(Ma'a)' which is used in situation where an individual or an entity is trying to maintain dignity and prestige.

Academic interpretations

Figurative "face" meaning "prestige; honor; dignity" is applied across many academic disciplines.

Sociology

"Face" is central to sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

 and sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and the effects of language use on society...

. Martin C. Yang (1945:167-179) analyzed eight sociological factors in losing or gaining face: the kinds of equality between the people involved, their ages, personal sensibilities, inequality in social status, social relationship, consciousness of personal prestige, presence of a witness, and the particular social value/sanction involved.

The sociologist Erving Goffman
Erving Goffman
Erving Goffman was a Canadian-born sociologist and writer.The 73rd president of American Sociological Association, Goffman's greatest contribution to social theory is his study of symbolic interaction in the form of dramaturgical perspective that began with his 1959 book The Presentation of Self...

 introduced the concept of "face" into social theory
Social theory
Social theories are theoretical frameworks which are used to study and interpret social phenomena within a particular school of thought. An essential tool used by social scientists, theories relate to historical debates over the most valid and reliable methodologies , as well as the primacy of...

 with his (1955) article "On Face-work: An Analysis of Ritual Elements of Social Interaction" and (1967) book Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior. According to Goffman's dramaturgical perspective, face is a mask
Mask
A mask is an article normally worn on the face, typically for protection, disguise, performance or entertainment. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremonial and practical purposes...

 that changes depending on the audience
Audience
An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature , theatre, music or academics in any medium...

 and the variety of social interaction. People strive to maintain the face they have created in social situations. They are emotionally attached to their faces, so they feel good when their faces are maintained; loss of face results in emotional pain, so in social interactions people cooperate
Cooperation
Cooperation or co-operation is the process of working or acting together. In its simplest form it involves things working in harmony, side by side, while in its more complicated forms, it can involve something as complex as the inner workings of a human being or even the social patterns of a...

 by using politeness strategies to maintain each others' faces.

"Face" is sociologically universal. People "are human," Joseph Agassi
Joseph Agassi
Joseph Agassi is an Israeli academic with contributions in logic, scientific method, and philosophy. He studied under Karl Popper and taught at the London School of Economics. He later taught at the University of Hong Kong, the University of Illinois, Boston University, and York University in...

 and I. C. Jarvie (1969:140) believe, "because they have face to care for – without it they lose human dignity." Ho elaborates:
The point is that face is distinctively human. Anyone who does not wish to declare his social bankruptcy must show a regard for face: he must claim for himself, and must extend to others, some degree of compliance, respect, and deference in order to maintain a minimum level of effective social functioning. While it is true that the conceptualization of what constitutes face and the rules governing face behavior vary considerably across cultures, the concern for face is invariant. Defined at a high level of generality, the concept of face is a universal. (1976:881-2)

The sociological concept of face has recently been reanalysed through consideration of the Chinese concepts of face (mianzi and lian) which permits deeper understanding of the various dimensions of experience of face, including moral and social evaluation, and its emotional mechanisms (Qi 2011).

Politeness theory

Penelope Brown and Stephen C. Levinson
Stephen C. Levinson
Stephen C. Levinson is one of the scientific directors of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. He received a BA in Archaeology and Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge and received a PhD in Linguistic Anthropology from the University of...

 (1987) expanded Goffman's theory
Theory
The English word theory was derived from a technical term in Ancient Greek philosophy. The word theoria, , meant "a looking at, viewing, beholding", and referring to contemplation or speculation, as opposed to action...

 of face in their politeness theory
Politeness theory
Politeness theory is the theory that accounts for the redressing of the affronts to face posed by face-threatening acts to addressees. First formulated in 1978 by Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson, politeness theory has since expanded academia’s perception of politeness...

, which differentiated between positive and negative face (Miller 2005).
  • Positive face is "the positive consistent self-image
    Self image
    A person's self-image is the mental picture, generally of a kind that is quite resistant to change, that depicts not only details that are potentially available to objective investigation by others A person's self-image is the mental picture, generally of a kind that is quite resistant to change,...

     or 'personality
    Personality type
    Personality type refers to the psychological classification of different types of individuals. Personality types are sometimes distinguished from personality traits, with the latter embodying a smaller grouping of behavioral tendencies. Types are sometimes said to involve qualitative differences...

    ' (crucially including the desire
    Desire (emotion)
    Desire is a sense of longing for a person or object or hoping for an outcome. Desire is the fire that sets action aflame. The same sense is expressed by emotions such as "craving" or "hankering". When a person desires something or someone, their sense of longing is excited by the enjoyment or the...

     that this self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by interactants"
  • Negative face is "the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights
    Rights
    Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory...

     to non-distraction
    Distraction
    Distraction is the divided attention of an individual or group from the chosen object of attention onto the source of distraction. Distraction is caused by: the lack of ability to pay attention; lack of interest in the object of attention; or the great intensity, novelty or attractiveness of...

     -- i.e. to freedom of action
    Freedom of action
    Freedom of action in philosophy has been distinguished from freedom of the will at least since the work of Thomas Hobbes and David Hume, who claimed that human freedom was the lack of external coercion and not the supposed "free will," which they took to be a will that could act independently of...

     and freedom from imposition"

In human interactions, people are often forced to threaten either an addressee's positive and/or negative face, and so there are various politeness strategies to mitigate those face-threatening acts.

Communication theory

Tae-Seop Lim and John Waite Bowers (1991) claim that face is the public image that a person claims for himself. Within this claim there are three dimensions. "Autonomy face" describes a desire to appear independent, in control, and responsible. "Fellowship face" describes a desire to seem cooperative, accepted, and loved. "Competence face" describes a desire to appear intelligent, accomplished, and capable (Miller 2005).

Masumoto, Oetzel, Takai, Ting-Toomey, & Yokochi (2000) defined "facework" as "the communicative strategies one uses to enact self-face and to uphold, support, or challenge another person's face". In terms of interpersonal communication
Interpersonal communication
Interpersonal communication is usually defined by communication scholars in numerous ways, usually describing participants who are dependent upon one another. It...

, Facework refers to an individual’s identity in a social world
Social reality
Social reality is distinct from biological reality or individual cognitive reality, and has been defined as 'a level of phenomena that emerges through social interactions and that cannot be reduced to the intentions of individuals'....

 and how that identity is created, reinforced, diminished, and maintained in communicative
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...

 interactions.

Intercultural communication

Face is central to intercultural communication
Intercultural communication
Intercultural communication is a form of global communication. It is used to describe the wide range of communication problems that naturally appear within an organization made up of individuals from different religious, social, ethnic, and educational backgrounds. Intercultural communication is...

 or cross-cultural communication
Cross-cultural communication
Cross-cultural communication is a field of study that looks at how people from differing cultural backgrounds communicate, in similar and different ways among themselves, and how they endeavour to communicate across cultures.- Origins :The Cold War, the United States economy...

. Bert Brown explains the importance of both personal and national face in international negotiations:
Among the most troublesome kinds of problems that arise in negotiation are the intangible issues related to loss of face. In some instances, protecting against loss of face becomes so central an issue that it swamps the importance of the tangible issues at stake and generates intense conflicts that can impede progress toward agreement and increase substantially the costs of conflict resolution. (1977:275)


In terms of Edward T. Hall
Edward T. Hall
Edward Twitchell Hall, Jr. was an American anthropologist and cross-cultural researcher. He is remembered for developing the concept of Proxemics, a description of how people behave and react in different types of culturally-defined personal space...

's dichotomy between high context culture
High context culture
High context culture and the contrasting "low context culture" are terms presented by the anthropologist Edward T. Hall in his 1976 book Beyond Culture. It refers to a culture's tendency to use high context messages over low context messages in routine communication...

s focused upon in-groups and low context culture
Low context culture
Low context culture and the contrasting "high context culture" are terms presented by the anthropologist Edward T. Hall in his book Beyond Culture. Low context culture refers to a culture’s tendency not to cater towards in-groups...

s focused upon individuals, face-saving is generally viewed as more important in high context cultures such as China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 or Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 than in low-context ones such as the U.S. or Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 (Cohen 1977).

Face-negotiation theory

Stella Ting-Toomey developed Face Negotiation Theory
Face negotiation theory
Face Negotiation Theory is a theory first postulated by Stella Ting-Toomey in 1985 to explain how different cultures manage conflict and communicate....

 to explain cultural differences in communication and conflict resolution. Ting-Toomey defines face as
the interaction between the degree of threats or considerations one party offers to another party, and the degree of claim for a sense of self-respect (or demand for respect toward one's national image or cultural group) put forth by the other party in a given situation. (1990)

Psychology

The psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

 of "face" is another field of research. Wolfram Eberhard
Wolfram Eberhard
Wolfram Eberhard was a professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley focused on Western, Central and Eastern Asian societies.-Biography:...

, who analyzed Chinese "guilt
Guilt
Guilt is the state of being responsible for the commission of an offense. It is also a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes or believes—accurately or not—that he or she has violated a moral standard, and bears significant responsibility for that...

" and "sin
Sin
In religion, sin is the violation or deviation of an eternal divine law or standard. The term sin may also refer to the state of having committed such a violation. Christians believe the moral code of conduct is decreed by God In religion, sin (also called peccancy) is the violation or deviation...

" in terms of literary psychology, debunked the persistent myth that "face" is peculiar to the Chinese rather than a force in every human society. Eberhard noted
It is mainly in the writings of foreigners that we find the stress upon shame in Chinese society; it is they who stated that the Chinese were typically afraid of "losing their face." It is they who reported many cases of suicide because of loss of face, or of samsonitic suicide, suicide in order to punish another person after one's death as a ghost, or to cause through suicide endless difficulties or even punishment to the other person. But in the Chinese literature used here, including also the short stories, I did not once find the phrase "losing face"; and there was no clear case of suicide because of shame alone. (1967:119-120)


The psychotherapist Michael Harris Bond observed that in Hong Kong,
Given the importance of having face and of being related to those who do, there is a plethora of relationship politics in Chinese culture. Name dropping, eagerness to associate with the rich and famous, the use of external status symbols, sensitivity to insult, lavish gift-giving, the use of titles, the sedulous avoidance of criticism, all abound, and require considerable readjustment for someone used to organizing social life by impersonal rules, frankness, and greater equality. (1991:59)

Political science

"Face" has further applications in political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...

. For instance, Susan Pharr
Susan Pharr
Susan J. Pharr is an academic in the field of political science, a Japanologist, and Edwin O. Reischauer Professor of Japanese Politics, Director of Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies and the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations at Harvard University...

 (1989) stressed the importance of "losing face" in Japanese comparative politics
Comparative politics
Comparative politics is a subfield of political science, characterized by an empirical approach based on the comparative method. Arend Lijphart argues that comparative politics does not have a substantive focus in itself, but rather a methodological one: it focuses on "the how but does not specify...

.

Semantics

Linguists have analyzed the semantics
Semantics
Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....

 of "face". Huang (1985, cited above) used prototype semantics to differentiate lian and mianzi. George Lakoff
George Lakoff
George P. Lakoff is an American cognitive linguist and professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1972...

 and Mark Johnson
Mark Johnson (professor)
Mark L. Johnson is Knight Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Oregon. He is well-known for contributions to embodied philosophy, cognitive science and cognitive linguistics, some of which he has coauthored with George Lakoff such as...

's Metaphors We Live By (1980:37) emphasizes "the face for the person" metonymy. Keith Allan (1986) extended "face" into theoretical semantics. He postulated it to be an essential element of all language interchanges, and claimed (1986:10): "A satisfactory theory of linguistic meaning cannot ignore questions of face presentation, nor other politeness phenomena that maintain the co-operative nature of language interchange."

External links

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