Page 126 - Handbooks of Applied Linguistics Communication Competence Language and Communication Problems Practical Solutions

104 Nathalie van Meurs and Helen Spencer-Oatey

about clarity but that British managers were more concerned than Dutch man-
agers about inconvenience (i.e., to prevent awkward and uncomfortable situ-
ations from happening or difficult questions from being asked). They are un-
likely to do so because they care for the other party, so it may be that the Dutch
managers are extremely unconcerned about inconvenience, mainly because
they care more about clarity and control regardless of harmony. Indeed, a con-
cern for inconvenience significantly predicted managers’ use of avoiding.
From an intercultural point of view, it is vital, therefore, to explore the tac-
tics that people use, as well as people’s desired outcomes for a particular conflict
episode and their generally preferred style or orientation for handling it. Lytle
(1999), for example, in her study of Chinese conflict management styles, reports
several categories of behaviour that cannot easily be linked with the grid frame-
work, because they are tactics rather than orientations or styles. They include
group-oriented behaviour (such as consulting with the group to solve a problem,
reframing the problem as a group problem and appealing to the group for help)
and relational behaviour (including building up the relationship with the other
party, and building up ‘guanxi’ or social connections with others).

3.3. Brown and Levinson’s face model

A second classic study that has had a major impact on studies of conflict is
Brown and Levinson’s (1987) face model of politeness. These authors start with
the basic assumption that “all competent adult members of a society have (and
know each other to have) ‘face’, the public self-image that every member wants
to claim for himself” (Brown and Levinson 1987: 61). They further propose that
face consists of two related aspects: negative face and positive face. They define
negative face as a person’s want to be unimpeded by others, the desire to be free
to act as s/he chooses and not be imposed upon. They define positive face as a
person’s want to be appreciated and approved of by selected others, in terms of
personality, desires, behaviour, values, and so on. In other words, negative face
represents a desire for autonomy, and positive face represents a desire for ap-
proval. The authors also draw attention to another important distinction: the dis-
tinction between self-face and other-face.
Brown and Levinson (1987) point out that face is something that is emotion-
ally invested; it can be lost, maintained or enhanced in interaction, and so inter-
locutors constantly need to pay attention to it. They assume that people typically
cooperate with each other in maintaining face in interaction, because people are
mutually vulnerable to face attack: if one person attacks another person’s face,
the other is likely to retaliate. Moreover, they argue that some speech acts (such
as criticism and directives) are inherently face-threatening, and that conflict can
be avoided by managing those speech acts in contextually appropriate ways.
They claim that there are five super-strategies for handling face-threatening acts: