Facework among L2 speakers: a close look at intercultural communication

ABSTRACT

Although significant attention has been devoted to the notion of facework and its functions, facework among L2 speakers, whose cultural backgrounds and language proficiencies vary, has remained unexplored. The present study attempts to explore situations of intercultural communication in which facework is used as a way to remedy moments of potential face loss. The data are drawn from communication among Korean, Malaysian, and Japanese students who were enrolled in an online synchronous class. On the basis of these data, three different types of facework were identified: self-mocking humour, group embarrassment, and attempts to build group cohesion. Tensions among the intercultural group, which could have led to a potential break in face maintenance, emerged. These tensions resulted from discrepancies within the cultural groups concerning recognition of face, cultural assumptions, and language use. When participants did not find an equitable resolution of tension in words, nonverbal face-saving strategies functioned to resolve conflict and mitigate loss of face by re-contextualising the interaction. Overall, this paper highlights the complexities of intercultural communication in relation to face maintenance and offers insights for future research into L2 speakers’ use of facework in intercultural communication.

KEYWORDS:

• Facework
• intercultural communication
• second-language speakers
• classroom discourse
• discourse analysis

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank C. Kim, A. Kawasaki, H. Onishi, Y. Jung, V. Stefani, and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback on earlier drafts of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Gee (2005, 61) suggests that ‘discourse models are theories (storylines, images, and explanatory frameworks) that people hold, often unconsciously, and use to make sense of the world and their experiences in it’.

2. There is no time difference between Korea and Japan.

3. The sequence of shared laughter is characterised as an invitation by the offerer and subsequent acceptance by the recipient (Jefferson 1979). Shared laughter is often not generated simultaneously; rather, co-participants join the laughter that starts with one speaker. It also often occurs when participants find a common interest to laugh about, but it is also often observed that such laughter is deliberately employed to win the audience over to one side or to consciously respond to an invitation that is aimed at maintaining or building solidarity.

4. Here, the KMS used his discourse model in terms of the word ‘garden’ as associated with a plot of ground.

5. As has been noted in interlanguage studies, a speaker with oral fluency is thought not only to express his or her messages freely with the maximised use of acquired language skills, but also to produce strategic utterances to flexibly accommodate the hearer’s response or the situation (see Fillmore 1979; Lennon 1990; Sajavaara 1987).