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In part, at a procedural level, this study has attempted - largely
necessitated by the specific research problem and data employed - to resolve
this tension by applying in the first instance symbolic categories (i. e. the self)
rather than linguistic ones (i. e. utterances and their components). In addition, in
order to locate the self - or more specifically conversational selves - within a
useable framework, I have employed the concepts of alignment to refer to the
collective facework practices, and equilibrium to refer essentially to the
normative thresholds on sociability. All three concepts have been incorporate
into a single analytical framework which has sought to traverse the analytical
impasse associated with facework in naturally occurring conversational
interaction.
These three central concepts the self, derived from an Goffmanian
reading and conceptual isation as construal, alignment, drawn from sociological
and cultural based work, and equilibrium, drawn primarily from the work of
Goffman (1967) have then been central to my approach to the study of
facework. I hope to have demonstrated in the preceding paragraphs how these
three concepts are not distinct and mutually exclusive ones, but rather
necessarily interwoven in with one another to form the conversational and
symbolic matrix that allows for the proffering and ratification of culturally valued
selves and the mutual activity of facework.
Briefly taking each one of these turn, the concept of the self as the
interactional and cultural basis for face has been fundamental to this study. in
Chapter 11 drew on a body of literature which identified culturally varying
notions of the self as the basis for culturally specific conceptualisations of face.
Cultural nuances of the self were seen to be contingent on the extent to which
the self of the individual 'overlapped' with the selves of others. Much of the
discussion was based on an East-West distinction of the self, and how cultural
differences directly informed the notion of face in Eastern and Western cultures.
In Chapter 81 introduced a more 'sociological' reading of the self, one based not
on culture as such, but rather a more dynamic conceptualisation of the self, as
arising out of and being contingent on interaction. Thus, I posited the concept of
the self as essentially a conversational
-con strua 1, an entity capable of variously
overlapping with the selves of other conversationalists over the flow of
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