BE OUT OF FACE, RUN OUT OF PARTY SPIRIT

An analysis of (im)politeness at an inauguration party

Catharina Mller Pragmtica 2010-2011 UDC

INTRODUCTION Goffman (1967: 5) defined face as the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact. This model has been further developed by different authors who worked on the topic of politeness over the last four decades. The theme of this work is an analysis of a conversational situation at an inauguration party of a flat, taking into account different approaches to politeness. As will be shown, depending on the line1 participants take, each one pursues his or her individual goals in this specific social encounter. Some want to be approved of by others while others want to preserve their individuality. Outstandingly, one participant is out of face during the encounter and seams to take no measures at all in order to repair her face-threatening acts. By doing so this participant does not only damage her own face but also the faces of the rest of the persons present. The objective of this work is to outline and explain each step of the chosen data in its context of the whole evening and regarding the relationships among the participants. In order to do so one natural oral conversation written down immediately after it took place was taken from the whole of the encounter. Its analysis will be carried out from an introspective point of view of the author of this work by applying pragmatic models. For a better understanding of the encounter a detailed description of the situation, its participants and other circumstances will be provided. In order to protect the identity of all participants their names were replaced by letters of the alphabet.

THE SITUATION

A and E moved into a flat together. They are best friends. After renovating their flat they organise an inauguration party and invite common and not common friends. In total there are eight people at the party. Description of participants in order of appearance: 25 years old Galician woman of Spanish nationality with a very good level of English. Normally she speaks in English or Galician with E, who is her new flatmate. With the rest of the participants she normally speaks in Spanish also if code switching to English in front of C and/or D is common.

22 years old Galician woman of Spanish nationality, sister of A. She is on visit from France and therefore stays at A and Es flat. In spite of speaking various languages, she communicates in Spanish with all participants of the encounter.

1Goffman(1967:5)definedlineasapatternofverbalandnonverbalactsbywhichheexpresses

hisviewofthesituationandthroughthishisevaluationoftheparticipants,especiallyhimself.

31 years old woman of American nationality. She has been living in A Corua for eight years and is bilingual in English and Spanish. She normally speaks in Spanish in front of people with little control of the English language.

33 years old Galician man of Spanish nationality. Neighbour, landlord and best friend of A and E. He has a very good level of English and speaks normally in Galician.

28 years old woman of German nationality. She has been living in Galicia for the last four years. Depending on to whom she is talking, she uses the Galician or English language. She is the new flatmate of A.

38 years old Galician man of Spanish nationality. He normally speaks in Spanish and has a low level of English.

G+H

Two Galician girls of Spanish nationality in their mid-twenties. Friends of A and B. Both speak normally in Spanish and, also if their English level is not bad, they are not comfortable with speaking it. They belong to a group of friends A, D and E call herbal teas because they do not drink or party in a very excessive way. Furthermore, the term is not meant in a depreciative way.

Relations among participants:

This graph can be interpreted in the following way: A and B are sisters and at the same time, best friends. A knows everybody else at the party. She is best friends with E and D and good friends with G and H, who she invited. A is also friend of C, who was introduced to her by D. She knows F due to D and E. B is sister of A and good friends with G and H. She is also friend with E, the flatmate of her sister and knows D. She only met F and C occasionally before. D is neighbour, landlord and best friend of A and E. He was good friend of C and has also a good relation with F. He knows B but never met G and H before. E is flatmate with A. Furthermore she is best friends with A and D. She is also friends with B and F, an amorous friend. E knows C well but would not really call her a friend. G and H, she only saw once before. F is an amorous friend of A and friend with D. F knows A and C and met B before. He never met G or H before. G and H are close friends of A and B and met before with E but they had never met C, D and F before. Place: Santa Cruz Oleiros A Corua Spain Time: In the evening of a Saturday of May, 2011.

Progression of the evening: A, B and E were preparing appetizers and cooling drinks. The other participants arrived one by one, less G and H, who arrived together. F and C brought some presents. As C works part-time as a baker of American desserts as a freelancer, she brought some homemade muffins and brownies dropping already the first strange comment that evening. Presenting her deserts she was upset that she forgot her business cards because she could have used the occasion to promote her business a bit. Participants were surprised about this comment, which was not meant ironically. C was wanted, in this context, in her identity as a friend and not in her identity as a seller of American desserts (Boxer, 2002: 48). As the evening went on, the game Psychopath was played, which consists of one person having to discover what is wrong with the others. This means everybody, less this person, knows what is going on and, therefore, has a good laugh while the one person trying to identify the problem has, more or less, a hard time if one takes it very seriously. C was the person who had to discover the problem due to the fact that she was the only one still not knowing the clue of the game. Moreover, she also wanted to be this person. After a very short time she got very annoyed by everybody else laughing because she misinterpreted it as them laughing at her. Thus she refused to continue playing. In continuation the following conversation took place:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

A B C

EH, lets play TWISTER! SI, SI, SI! ah, what a party! if i knew it i wouldnt have come.

perdona, rEIna de la marcha.

boh, solamente porque no te gusta jugar a nada, no tienes que hablar asi! a MI no me gustan las cosas de los nios. pues nadie te oblig a jugar. vale, chicas, somebody wants another beer? 5

8 9 10 11

C B E

12 13 14 15 16

C A D F

NO, thanks. yeah, sure. yep. si. te ayudo?

After this conversation took place F and E went to get more drinks. No Twister was played and participants went on talking and dancing. At first G and H left and when the decision was taken that the rest of the participants go down to have a drink in a nearby pub in order to not disturb the neighbours, also C left. A, B, D and F went to the pub and continued partying.

ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION One thing, which has to be noticed in order to understand better the context of the situation, is that B and C are two girls who like to take centre stage. Before the inauguration party they did not know each other but just coincided a couple of times at a concert to which A, D and E used to go. Another starting point to know is that a general pattern of C is her self-centredness, about which even D, who was her nearest friend among the participants, complains. Before paying attention to a more in-depth analysis of the conversation, the general attitudes to the evening or goals (Tracy, 1991) of the participants might be described in the following way: A, as one of the hosts, wanted to have a good time for herself but was also taking care of the course of the evening. B wanted to party, especially with her sister A; her expectations for the evening were high. Cs objective was also partying but in a rather intensive and extraordinary way, something she always tries to do on Saturday nights due to the fact that she gets up early on Sundays. Therefore she is often seeking the peak of the party already at eleven oclock. D wanted to have a good time, having a beer with friends and forgetting about work. E, as the other host, wanted to enjoy as much as possible while taking care of the contentedness of everybody. F wanted to party by drinking and smoking as much as possible, while G and H wanted to spend a good time, especially with their close friends A and B. G and H are rather chary while with people they still do not know too much. Goffman (1967: 6) states Ones face and the faces of others are constructs of the same order; it is the rule of the group and the definition of the situation which determine how much feeling one is to have for face and how this feeling is to be distributed among the faces involved. Thus, in this specific situation of an inauguration party of a flat, each 6

participant should try to show solidarity with the rest of the participants, if well-known or not, in order to achieve the group goal of having a good time. After knowing the general positions and expectations of each participant to the evening, a closer look onto the conversation can be conducted. First of all, the division of the conversation into two thematic parts has to be noticed the first part embracing utterances one to nine while the tenth one works as a connector to the second part from utterance 11 to 16. As will be argued below, the second part acts as a solving strategy of the problem occurring in the first part. A in utterance one 1 A EH, lets play TWISTER!

is proposing a new game after the first game played that evening foundered. She is acting with a positive face, the want of every member that his wants be desirable to at least some others (Brown & Levinson, 1987: 62), seeking solidarity with the other participants by trying to introduce a new, less conflictive, topic. Her sister B reacts approving enthusiastically 2 B SI, SI, SI!

while C shows a negative face, the want of every competent adult member that his actions be unimpeded by others (Brown & Levinson, 1987: 62), thus distancing herself from the rest of the group 3 4 C ah, what a party! if i knew it i wouldnt have come.

By saying these two utterances C seems to be out of face. Goffman (1967: 8) describes being out of face as somebody who participates in a contact with others without having ready a line of the kind participants in such situations are expected to take. C is obviously not following the group or either seeking solidarity. She favours the preservation of her individuality over the want to be approved of by others. If politeness is defined as a means of minimizing the risk of confrontation in discourse (Lakoff, 1989 in Placenca & Garca, 2007: 4), Cs reaction to As offer and Bs answer is highly impolite and, therefore, conflictive. It can be described as a face-threatening act (FTA), those acts that by their nature run contrary to face wants of the addressee and/or of the speaker (Brown & Levinson, 1987: 65). C threatens the faces of all participants; moreover, she attacks directly B who was delighted by the idea of playing another game. D, in this encounter, is Cs closest friend and, thus, he does some face work, the actions taken by a person to make whatever he is doing consistent with face (Goffman (1967: 12) in order to avoid causing face loss of C and the rest of the participants. To minimize the effects of Cs utterances he applies irony:

5 6

perdona, rEIna de la marcha.

What D actually does is the use of hints that invite conversational implicatures (Placenca & Garca, 2007: 5) by using two strategies only a few of the present people would understand. On the one hand, he is joking and, at the same time, teasing C because only A, C, D and E know that C is the one who always leaves early and is, therefore, the party pooper. Thus, it seems ridiculous that it is especially her who is criticizing the event. On the other hand, D utters five and six in the Spanish language. This code switching - normally D speaks in Galician or English - is another hint for his irony. D commonly switches to the Spanish language to make jokes or to point out something ridiculous while he is speaking in Galician. This implicature only E, and maybe A, could have understood. According to Boxer (2002: 86) situational humour [] requires [] in-group knowledge. This indirect hint of D is accompanied by a more direct response of B 7 B boh, solamente porque no te gusta jugar a nada, no tienes que hablar asi!

Latest at this point of the conversation the conflictive relation between the two centre stage taking girls, B and C, stands out. Instead of following Lakoffs opinion (1973: 297) that it is more important in a conversation to avoid offense than to achieve clarity (in Placenca & Garca, 2007: 3) C is openly impolite. By saying 8 C a MI no me gustan las cosas de los nios.

she attacks everybody else who enjoyed playing Psychopath before (thus, everybody, less herself); moreover, it is a direct attack to B, who was the first one to say SI to As proposal of playing another game. Furthermore, C implies her being more grown up than the other participants, which is nearly true from a biological point of view but maybe it can be said that one really becomes an adult when s/he is open-minded to children games again. Instead of letting go and let C as the offending person [] appear to have acted maliciously and spitefully, with the intention of causing open insult (Goffman, 1967: 14), B counteracts by adding 9 B pues nadie te oblig a jugar.

Goffman (1967: 10) points out

Just as the member of any group is expected to have self-respect, so also he is expected to sustain a standard of considerateness; he is expected to go to certain lengths to save the feelings and the face of others present, and he is expected to do this willingly and

spontaneously because of emotional identification with the others and with their feelings. In consequence, he is disinclined to witness the defacement of others.

C was not willing to save the feelings and the face of others present, D was not able to do so and B got so involved into her personal fight with C that she lost track. A seemed dumbstruck between her role as a good host and defender of her sister. The verbal fight between B and C might have continued. As nobody else intended to save the situation, E tried to avoid the offense and changed topics, because a person will have two points of view a defensive orientation toward saving his own face and a protective orientation toward saving the others faces (Goffman, 1967: 14), by uttering the connective sentence 10 E vale, chicas,

and introducing the phatic sentence 11 somebody wants another beer?

According to Boxer (2002: 49) Phatic communication, [], is an important social lubricant. This resolving or shortcutting of the problem in utterances one to nine could have been accomplished in another way; however, due to the fact that E knows Cs behavioural pattern she did not even try to call Cs attention to her rather strange behaviour but chose, in her role as a host, to protectively turn away from [C] or [her] activity for a moment, to give [her] time to assemble [her]self (Goffman, 1967: 18). Indeed, this possibility of assembling herself and taking again a positive face in solidarity with the group was denied by C due to her uttering in a rather aggressive and dismissive tone 12 C NO, thanks.

The offer of conflict avoidance by E was, therefore, openly refused by C. C seems to go directly contra any politeness rules by not even trying to mitigate or repair her FTA, even after an abrupt change of topics. According to Arndt and Janney (1992), who based their view of tact on Goffmans (1967) concept of face, C is not at all tactful in the whole conversation. Being tactful is not simply a matter of behaving in a socially correct way i.e., following rules of social usage; rather, it is a matter of behaving in an interpersonally supportive way (1992: 23 in Placenca & Garca, 2007: 7). Even if C, in the first part of the conversation, did not act tactfully, E by uttering 10 and 11 gave C the possibility to return to the group, to behave in an interpersonally supportive way; anyhow, in 12 it can be seen how prosody can convey impoliteness. A simple no could have had the plane meaning of not wanting another drink, however, by emphasizing this NO, C openly rejects the offer to cooperate. Therefore utterance 12 distanced C even more from the other participants who accepted the offer of another drink showing thus their alliance with E: 9

13 14 15 16

A D F

yeah, sure. yep. si. te ayudo?

F did not only respond approvingly but moreover politely offered his help showing a positive face. It has to be pointed out that G and H did not involve themselves at all into this conversation, which might be due to their chary characters and their not knowing some participants. However, by not taking part they are not necessarily neutral but rather avoiding the conflict. Reflecting again on Cs behaviour one has to ask why C as an intelligent, wellstudied person who, for example, works in costumer contact is not aware of basic politeness rules in a social situation like the one described above. Why did she prefer clarity instead of avoiding offense? What are her goals in this encounter? Clark and Delia (1979) [] suggested that interactants have three main types of goals: a task or instrumental one, a self-presentational, identity one, and a relational one. Each of this goals is present in every social situation, [], but specific situations differ in the salience of each. (Tracy, 1991: 4). Cs goal, obviously, was predominantly a selfpresentational, identity one; however, as Goffman (1967: 7) points out Thus while concern for face focuses the attention of the person on the current activity, he must, to maintain face in the activity, take into consideration his place in the social world beyond it. Seemingly, C was not aware of this and put her individual goal of self-presenting her over the group goal of having a good time. Therefore, after the described encounter and many others, she has lost her close relation with some of the participants. Again citing Goffman (1967: 10) it can be related to C that approved attributes and their relation to face make every man his own jailer; this is a fundamental social constraint even though each man may like his cell. Interpreted from Frasers (1990) understanding of politeness Cs behaviour is markedly impolite. For Fraser politeness does not involve making the hearer feel good, la Lakoff or Leech, nor with making the hearer not feel bad, la B & L, but getting on with the task at hand in light of the terms and conditions of the CC [conversational contract] (Fraser 1990: 233 in Placenca & Garca, 2007: 6). C does not consider the set of rights and obligations that will determine, [], the limits of the interaction (Fraser and Nolen, 1981: 93-4 in Placenca & Garca, 2007: 6). The goal of a party should be for everybody to have fun and even if there might be uncomfortable moments for some of the participants, these cracks would normally be just papered over. According to Astons (in Placenca & Garca, 2007: 8) approach of positive and negative rapport, he acknowledges that interactants may not always be interested in establishing or maintaining relations, but may want to damage them, which might 10

explain Cs behaviour. C just does not seem to be interested in establishing a good relation with the rest of the participants. She is emphasizing her individuality, asymmetrically trying to exert power in a rather symmetrical power constellation of the present company. The general perception of the situation should be the one of a solidarity politeness system (-P, -D) but, in C, there is no high level of involvement politeness but rather a concentration of independence (im)politeness (Scollon & Scollon, 2001: 55). It seems that C is not interested in being evaluated positively in terms of her personal qualities. Probably the negative dimension of her face is more important to her than its positive dimension (according to Brown & Levinson, 1988). However, this behaviour is not suitable for this kind of social encounter.

CONCLUSIONS The conversation, which is the basis for this work, was analysed from the point of view of diversely developed politeness models. However, the numerous studies on politeness might not be able to fully give account of what is happening in openly impolite situations. Therefore a reconsideration of the analysis based on models of impoliteness, as Culpepers (2011) one, would be recommendable and an interesting task for future work on this topic. Another starting point for further research could be if culture-specific differences might explain Cs behaviour. Scollon & Scollon (2001: 46) observe that it is important to point out [] that there may be significant cultural differences in the assumption made about the self that is involved in communication. Other authors, such as Knapp-Potthoff (in Watts & Ide & Ehlich, 1992: 203), state in intercultural communication, more so than in other types of communication, face-threatening acts and their redress do not operate on the inter-individual level alone, but by processes of attribution and stereotyping tend to have consequences for higher levels of social organisation as well. It might be possible to find more revealing explanations to the communicative problems stated in the encounter above by considering intercultural differences. As can be seen in the participants description, different nationalities and, therefore persons with different cultural background took part in the conversation; however, all participants have lived already longer than four years in the same cultural community and have a good command of Spanish. Therefore, the lines they revealed cannot primarily be explained due to cultural differences. Language use reflects and perpetuates individual and social identities; moreover, language choices enable us to develop new relational identities (Boxer, 2002: 87). With the language C had chosen that evening she dissociated herself from the group in general, failed to gain new friends and accomplished to loosen friendships that were tight before.

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REFERENCES

Boxer, Diana (2002). Applying sociolinguistics domains and face-to-face interaction. Amsterdam : John Benjamins Publishing Company. Brown, Penelope and Levinson, Stephen C. (1988). Politeness some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Culpeper, Jonathan (2011). Impoliteness: using language to cause offence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goffman, Erving (1982). Interaction ritual. New York: Pantheon Books. Hagemeyer Burgo, Vanessa. A preservao da face no texto falado: os procedimentos de atenuao enquanto estratgias scio-interacionais Placencia, Mara Elena and Garca, Carmen (eds.) (2007). Research on politeness in the Spanish-speaking world. Mahwah, N.J. : Lawrence Erlbaum. Scollon, Ron and Scollon, Suzanne Wong (2001). Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach (Second Edition). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd. Tracy, Karen (ed.) (1991). Understanding face-to-face interaction: Issues linking goals and discourse. Hillsdale (New Jersey): Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Watts, Richard J. & Ide, SachiKo & Ehlich, Konrad (eds.) (1992). Politeness in language studies in its history, theory and practice. Berlin : Mouton de Gruyter.

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