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toward a clearer understanding of what it actually means in each sociable
milieu to behave politely, engage in facework - in short, to be sociable.
3.4 Summary: Facework as Alignment
The preceding discussion has moved forward at quite a rapid pace, and
apologies are made for any areas under-explicated. As I mentioned above, the full
contingencies of the facework as alignment approach will be accorded more
elaboration in the subsequent analytical chapters (Chapters 6 to 8). However, I can
now summarise the propositions advanced in this chapter. As I mentioned at the
outset of the chapter, what I have sought to identify is a suitable analytic framework
for the analysis of facework in German and English sociable episodes. I began the
discussion by reviewing current frameworks
for the analysis of facework in
discourse. This discussion was largely grounded in the work of Goffman (1967),
and Brown and Levinson (1987). It was concluded that for a range of reasons,
although both Goffman and Brown and Levinson's readings of facework provided a
general set of conceptual and analytical frameworks neither allowed for a
systematic analysis of sociable conversation. Indeed, due its apolite nature,
sociable conversation was posited as problematic in terms of accessing facework
practices as conceived in the majority of contemporary facework studies. Moving
on, I drew on a body of literature which specifically addressed sociability and
sociable conversation. From an identification of fundamental dynamics of sociable
conversation, I suggested that facework might best be perceived of as alignment
practices - ones which were part and parcel of the achievement of sociable
conversation.
Drawing on the concepts of equilibrium alignment, and the self, I suggested
that facework in sociable conversational was a matter of alignment of sociable
selves. That is, selves as both images, and selves as construals were effectively
posited as being both alignable and align dependant entities. It was to the
normative practices whereby these entities were aligned over the course of
sociable episodes that I suggested might hold the key for understanding facework
in German and English sociable episodes.
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