We are taught communicative rules from the moment we begin to string together sentences. Cultures have different rituals and traditions, which give us communicative and social norms. We are taught to give eye contact, talk in turns, and not interrupt. Without simple rules like these, communication would be impossible. Communication rules can be either implicit or explicit. Implicit rules are implied or “unwritten” rules, whereas explicit rules have actually been stated between relational partners. These rules are expected in any relationship and it is our responsibility to follow them. If we behave the expected way, people will feel more comfortable around us, and we become more attractive to them. Conversely, if we do not follow these rules, we become weird, and people distance themselves from weird people.
Along with rules comes politeness, which leads me to talk about politeness theory (Brown and Levinson, 1987). Brown and Levinson say that politeness is all about “face”. Face involves an awareness or concern concerning our self image or the self image of others. According to this theory, we have both a positive and negative face; however, this does not mean we have a good and a bad face. Positive face is our self image, or our belief about our self, how we value our self, and how we want to be viewed. Our negative face is our independence; can we do what we want, when we want, how we want? There are several assumptions that this theory is based on, they are as follows; (1) positive and negative face threats are a part of social interaction, (2) within interaction faces can be threatened or validated, and (3) we generally try to avoid threatening our own face or others sense of face in interactions. The video below shows how we might avoid threatening the face of others (skip to 3:20).
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Have you ever heard of the expression “saving face”? Saving face is the notion of leaving your identity unharmed and maintaining a good self image. To save face we use strategies known as preventative facework’. A common type of preventative facework is disclaimers, where we make excuses for our actions ahead of time. Some types of disclaimers are; hedging, where we save face by starting with, “I might be wrong but. . .” because if we are wrong we do not look stupid. Sin licensing is recognizing that you are saying something politically incorrect but saying, “I shouldn’t say this but. . .” beforehand to save face. Cognitive disclaimers are when you use your cognitive ability as an excuse for what you have said/are going to say. There is also a type of preventative facework called verbal self-handicapping. This is when you might make a physical excuse to save face ahead of time. For example, if I tell everyone that I am having terrible knee problems before our season opener, I have an excuse for playing bad, but if I play well people will think I triumphed over the pain.
Now, if we have damaged our face, we use “corrective facework strategies. The first of these strategies is avoidance, where if a situation has the potential to make you look bad, you will do anything to avoid that situation. We may use humor and turn our mistake into a joke. We may apologize for our actions. We may give our account, or make excuses for our actions. My personal favorite is physical remediation, where we adjust something physically as if that is the reason for our actions, for example, if we trip we might look at our shoes like there is something wrong with them. Finally there is aggression, where we just get so mad at the situation that it distracts from our mistakes and makes people feel sorry for us.
Obviously face saving is not all there is to politeness theory. As I said earlier, we have communicative rules and rituals that society expects us to follow. We use all kinds of greetings so we are not thought of as impolite. Without greetings we will not communicate, thus rituals are culturally dependent. The most common form of greeting is the verbal salute, such as “Hey,” or any other variation. A more personal option is direct reference, where we call names. If we are in a really good mood and have a minute or two to spare, we might use personal enquiry, like “Hey Luke, how are you today?” We might also express our desire to continue the relationship with greetings like “It’s great to see you! It’s been too long!” We might apologize for not seeing them in so long, we might even refer to the situation, like the weather for instance. Finally, we might use compliments, jokes or even just non-verbals, such as a wave or a nod etc. Of course all of these greeting depends on your relationship with the other person, obviously professors or bosses will have to be addressed more formally.
Relational openings are rituals that are created in which a desire to form a relationship is indicated. Usually these are directed towards romantic relationships, this is where we see pick up lines.
If we are as successful as the Fresh Prince, our pick up lines may lead to small talk. We use small talk as a proving ground for new and established relationships, as it satisfies our inclusion needs. It is a safe procedure for telling about ourselves and learning about others, although it can become uncomfortable if too much information is disclosed. From small talk we can progress to more integrating and penetrating topics. The primary basis for small talk in initial interactions is uncertainty reduction, because if we are uncertain about someone, we are uncomfortable and they become unattractive, which leads back to rules and rituals and becoming familiar with our new and established relational partners.
I have definitely used a number of these strategies to save my face, however, when people spit on my face I usually have something to say about it (see first video if you don’t understand the reference)!
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