An Analysis of Differences between Chinese and Western Ideas on Face

Abstract: Mianzi (face) is psychological, not physical. It is abstract, elusive, but it is the most delicate standard in Chinese social communication. It touches the most delicate Chinese social psychology of singular points. In the half past century, Chinese and foreign scholars have tried to explore the problems of face in different fields- social anthropologist, social linguists, sociologists and psychologists to explain a variety of social phenomena, but they haven’t reached a consensus and found good solutions. Therefore, this paper tries to review the existing research to explore the problems and enlightenment of face and find a direction for future research if possible.

Key words: Chinese and Western; face; differences

内容摘要：面子是心理上的,而不是生理上的。它抽象,不可捉摸,但却是中国人调节社会交往的最细腻的标准，同时也触及到了中国人社会心理最微妙奇异之点。在过去的半个多世纪里,中外学者针对面子问题进行了努力的探索。如今面子这个词已被不同领域的学者—社会人类学家、社会语言学家、社会学家和心理学家用于解释各种各样的社会现象。但是在不同的理论就有关面子的基本概念却远未达成共识，众多理论上的重要问题也未得到很好的解答。因此，本文力图通过回顾已有的研究，针对目前面子研究的现状，探究其中存在的问题与启示，进而为进一步的具体研究寻找思路与方向。

关键词：中西方 面子观 差异

1. Introduction

The face theory of western social cultural characteristics mainly takes individualism as the starting point. The actively face mainly emphasizes on "equality" or "consistent". It reflects that in the communication, the speaker should be associated with the hearer, pay attention to the other side and show our concern. While the negative face stresses individualism. That is to say that individuals have a certain degree of freedom, but also respect other people’s freedom. In china, the host should say words like “enjoy the food” or “take care” to show respect and to give face. However, in western countries, it would be considered as a way to affect the hearer’s negative face.

According to Joachim's point of view, in western culture the standard of "face" does not have a wide range of social construction. In west countries, everyone is responsible for his own face, but it is possible that he may lose his face.

 In the Chinese cultural, the "face saving" has a behavior criterion that is deeper and wider. Its construction is contrary to the West. This is not the criterion for individuals, but it is public oriented. it starts with every specific social unit. The rule itself is a social construction, which can maintain social cohesion. For example, the traitor is losing his face, here "face" that someone does something to damage the country or moral standards, really for the countered of the state and loses a kind of morality. So for Chinese people, the way of "lose face" is more serious than the consequence of "lose face". "Lose face" just means that groups do not give individuals respect or attention, but it doesn’t mean that individuals do something to violate the code of ethics. However, China's "reward face" and "face" can be understood as the same meaning. But it is different with Levinson's positive face, whether it is "reward face" or "face", it is opposed to the concept of others and depends on the group tendency. However, positive face hopes to receive others’ from the "individualism" as a starting point to recognized the behavior of an individual.

In the west, the representative Goffman (1967) thinks face refers that in the specific social communication, individual successfully obtained others but also other condemn people think he should obtain the positive social value. It  is a social attribute to recognize to be painted self image. When a person is not entirely his self-image, he would have to take to save face threatening actions, namely so-called facework. Goffman divided his facetheory into two kinds of self - face (one's own face) and others face (to someone else's face), and corresponding facework are defense (a His face) and protection (other people's face). Later studies, such as relationship management model Holtgraves face management theory and Spencer-Oatey continued to follow the Goffman definition. The politeness theory of American anthropologist Brown & Levinson (1978) that face is "everyone asking others recognized public self heart image, it is an emotion investment, can be lost, maintain or increase, and always pay attention to the things needed in communication. The face is the basic desire and demand of people in communication, session participants have face, which is divided into negative face individual freedom of action, no interference with the rights) and positive face (personal positive self-image or personality praised) two kinds of. Ho, 1976, believes "face is individual based on his social networking accounts for the position, the appropriate role performance and acceptance behavior ethics, and from others respect, personal face but as individuals and closely related to the life manner and social prestige is no anastoosis; while in communication, the face can be said to be A mutual obedience, respect, both sides are expected to obtain, while preparing to return. His definition implied person's face is from obedience to group norms. In addition, he also pointed out that a definition of the past did not mention the focus of that person's face is also affected by influence and personal relationship is close, this reflects the fundamental differences between Chinese and western face view.

Anyway, although the description of the modern Chinese and Western scholars let us have intuitive understanding to face. However, due to their proposed concept from the majority of the observation and thinking on daily life, so there was no deep underlying psychological mechanism. Moreover, they emphasized face culture negative impact on Chinese, and as a part of the weakness of the Chinese national character to be excavated and criticism. However, later researchers generally recognize face is not limited in China, not just product of collective culture in Asia but widespread cultural concept.

1.1 The Definition of Face in China

“Face" is an ancient concept and owns rich means in Chinese vocabulary. People are familiar with it. This is a action to judge causes from actions. That is people observe if one can obtain face to judge his humanness without knowing his ability and status. Man of face would be regarded as a great man. Therefore, some addicted to flatter himself. It contains the deeper imagine of Chinese social psychology. The word “face” is paid a lot attention by Chinese. It would be inappropriate to say it as an objective entity or emotional appellation. However, in fact, it has been the unspoken rule to dominate the running of Chinese society. Even give face is to respect personality or violations of dignity. Therefore, people always pay a lot attention to the matter of face. 

The word "face" is a complex word for the Chinese people, which contains more meaning than what we can describe or possibly comprehend (Smith, 1894). Lu Xun's had repeatedly talked about the matter of face: "it's has several kinds, each of them has different meaning. The influence of face culture is deep and wide. its emergence and development has a profound historical reasons, and it is mainly originated from the ancient clan system and feudal hierarchy of propriety and ethics of the supremacy of the concept. Lin Yutang thinks that face is a kind of gift that can be" get "and "lost". "Face", "life" and "grace" are three unchangeable Chinese rules. He thinks that they are generated by the idea of equality under social class and grade social norms. It’s different from honor in western countries. he positively asserts that unless everyone in this country loses his own face, otherwise China will not become a true democratic country.

 Chichao Chan (1982) on the face of the definition is: "on the self or ego involvement of the object and has a self value attribute, the cognition of the parties to the significant others on the valuation of the property, formed with social meaning and interpersonal meaning of self-image." in other words, his definition also see a face for a self-image, or public self heart is like. His definition of the biggest characteristic in that face forming process and social perception of face of role.From this view, Chen Zhizhao believes that the face is situational, but can also be accumulated to be lasting.

 Zhu Ruiling (1987) believes that from Xianjin Hu first proposed to face classification, we can see that face contains at least two kinds of social desirability value. One is personal achievement, the other is personality. Therefore, there are two kind concepts of face. One is society acquired face(contains status, political power academic achievements and so on). It is given by society. The other is inner moral standards. It is self-disciplined and it doesn’t need any judgments from others. Zhu Ruining divides four kinds of face requirements according to social received achievements and social control means. 

1.2 The Definition of Face in the West

In the west, the first one to put forward the concept of face is Irving Goffman. He defined face as positive social values. Each of us lives in the society of social groups. It is inevitable that we are involved in communication performance. Everyone has their personal image in the process of social communication. Brown and Levinson later think everyone in society is hoped to have personal self-image. They divided face into two categories: negative face and positive face. Positive face refers to the communicative activities, the personal image or personality, including hope, this self-image, it becomes a commendable desire. In the negative side, people want to have their own geographic rights, rights of action, uninterrupted rights; their behavior, freedom and  inviolability in communication activities, reluctant owners of personal action and free interference. The ideal situation is that it would be the best to take into account the faces of others. However, the face itself is a contradiction. All communication with the communicator must be carefully worded, proper decent, maintain the positive face, as well as to maintain the negative face.

Goffman (1967) thinks that face means in specific social communication, individuals successfully obtain denouncement from others but also get positive social value from others. When a person fails to show his self-image, he have to take actions to restore the face threatening act, that is so-called face-work. Goffmanl divides face into two kinds of self - face (one's own face) and others’ face (to someone else's face), and against them are respectively (one's own face defense and protection ( Other people's face). Later studies, such as the face management theory of Holtgraves and the relationship management model of Spencer-Oatey continues to use Goffman definition. The politeness theory of American anthropologist Brown & Levinson (1978) holds that face is "everyone asks others to recognize public self heart image , which is an emotion investment,  which can be lost, maintain or increase, and always pay attention to the things needed in communication." Ho (1976) thinks: "face Obedience obedience; in person is based on his social networking accounts for the position, the appropriate role performance and acceptance behavior ethics, individual face but as individuals and closely related to the life manner and social prestige is consistent and constant; and in personal communication, the face can be said to be a mutual respect and respect, both parties expect to gain. At the same time to repay. "His definition implies that the person's face but from to group norms. In addition, he also pointed out that a past definition did not mention the key that person's face and personal relationship is close,  it reflects the basic differences of Chinese and Western views of face.

2. The Differences between Chinese and Western Ideas on Face

In China, Confucianism advocates that one should do his best, in the maximum obedience to their own community or social, to get to common and  consensus atmosphere. Individuals should be connected with other people together, rather than simply meet their desires. Influenced by this concept, Chinese culture focuses on the participation of face and politeness strategies. To lose face, to gain face, to be shameless, to be thick skinned, to be decent, to give face, to leave little face, they are basic concepts to described Chinese people's daily life and communication. Hwang and Hu Xianjin Mr. in the book Face to face is defined as: face, representative in China is widely regarded as a reputation, which is risen in life history, borrowing from the successes and boast and reputation, but also through the personal effort or set out deliberately to the accumulated reputation. To obtain this kind of affirmation, one has to rely on external environment at any time. In short, face stresses that people depend on the needs of the society, their social status and reputation .

And in western culture, people attach great importance to the freedom and individualism, emphasizing the rights of the individual and self action, hating to interfere in the affairs of others, respecting others’ privacy and personal hobby and having considerable tolerance. Therefore, it emphasis on independence of politeness and face. Brown and LEV out system elaborates politeness system, in their view, politeness is a typical (model person) in order to meet the needs of the face to ake rational behavior.

 The politeness theory of Brown and Levinson actually includes three aspects: face, face threatening acts and politeness strategy. And the face including positive face (or face) and negative face (negative face). Positive face is that every member of society want his desire to be obedient and his self-image to be appreciate and praised. Western people’s praise culture is a typical example, for example, if someone want to praise other people while meeting, he may “you look nice today! Or I like your T-shirt”. In fact, he maintain the hearer's positive face. But negative face does not mean something bad,and it is relatively positive, that is social members hope that its actions are not interference with the freedom of action of freedom and self-determination, who contrary to the communication of the hope for freedom of speech act is the communicator negative face infringement. Negative face emphasizes the personality of the communicative participants, which emphasizes that the individual's rights are not bound by the values of their own groups or groups at least, and are not subject to coercion by others.

2.1. The Differences in Language Communication

Differences in language communication means that communicative ways have different degrees of difference in western language. The West general language is a low context, they used to use a clear and specific language to transmit information. And the language culture of our country  belongs to the high context culture, people use indirect and euphemistic, circuitous table mode to transfer and understand information in high culture context, especially in dissent or rejection due to the face, it often not directly said that we do not to understand the utterance meaning, it is necessary that we need to understand the implication.

Otherwise, it is often found in different cultural contexts and different languages, at the same time, which often occurred in the any following situations: due to the cultural difference, even if the language is accurate without any error, but it also can produce some misunderstanding. For different people, when they use a same word or the same kind of expression, they may have different meaning. Because of these differences, communication will cause a serious problem, because a word is not appropriate,and it can make the listeners laugh and be laughed; a sentence without malice can make each other uncomfortable or angry. Because of the cultural differences in foreign speech, the audience hears a joke, there is no reaction, no expression, however, in the domestic, a joke will make the audience laugh.

 Language and culture affect each other, interact with each other; understanding the language must understand its culture and the culture must understand the language.

 Face culture is all kinds of the language and varied. Due to differences in culture and language, understanding each other is not an easy thing, intercultural communication often encounter difficulties. Language is the portrayal of the culture, not only reflects the cultural form and language structures reflects the people's concept of value. There is no doubt that  language habits of different countries or there is a vastly different, because of the various ethnic groups living in different environments, it result in the formation of cultural connotation and language habit naturally different, such as Chinese met commonly used: "have you eaten?", "how old are you?", and so on a number of simple greeting terms. In the West People seem to be involved in personal privacy issues, they generally do not want to even resent the answer.

2.2. The Differences in Values

The value of Chinese values from the British and Americans view also has a very big difference, but in the final analysis: Chinese people advocate collectivism while occidental advocate individualism.Chinese people pay attention to the big side: collective; and British and American people advocate the small side: personal. Chinese of collective Chinese from advocating unity psychology, the United is centralized. In China, the benefit of the group is the individual's interest, the group's value is the value of the individual. The will of the individual must comply with that of the group of common will; individual personality can only be attached to the common personality groups. 

Western individualism is derived from the Bible. According to the Bible,  God creates man, and since man is the product of God, it is the most precious of all. Individualism believes that the value is the experience of the people, all the values are in the center of the individual; the supreme personal value, society is only a means to achieve personal goals; all individuals are morally equal. Individualism advocates competition, self-reliance, self actualization, and the protection of personal privacy. Today, the United States is considered a typical representative of individualism.

Mr. Guan Shijie believes that the concept of collectivism and individualism value on the differences between China and the United States mainly reflects in seven aspects: 1) the Chinese people pay attention to the mutual aid and rely on others, while Americans focus on self-reliance and independence; 2) the Chinese emphasis on collective action, while Americans focus on outstanding person; 3) the Chinese people pay attention to save face, while Americans do not leave face; 4) the Chinese people pay attention to intimacy, while Americans pay attention to privacy; 5) in the people like common, Americans pay attention to personality; 6) the Chinese focus on interpersonal harmony, Americans like to individual competition; 7) Chinese people focus on the supremacy of the collective, while Americans focus on individual supremacy.

In China and the west, we find that Chinese people pay more attention to face than Westerners. In the face of the collective face and individual, between each other face and self face, Chinese people emphasize collective face, while Westerners pay more attention to their own face. 

Due to the cultural background of different view also reflects the great differences in the western face. China focuses on people do everything possible to protect the face, afraid of losing face, and hoping to get others affirmation. Relatively, the face of Chinese people does not contain the elements of negative face. Western countries face emphasized on individual action of freedom and personal desire to meet, the needs of individuals, way of life, privacy, etc. to respected and protected by society, is a Human centered values. For example western meal, the host usually said, help yourself! F he who pay attention to is respect each other free to choose the right eat or not to eat, eat, or eat. They don't like to impose their views that people in the West tend to meet the communication each other's negative face. Western culture's positive face and we face are similar, because the two cultures are not rejected by others of their own identity and praise. But the negative face of Western and Chinese culture in the face or face is somewhat different. This br N ow and inson Lev (1978) have also pointed out: in the western society may threaten the other side of the negative face of the act in China does not pose a threat to the force.

2.3. The Difference in Thinking Mode

Because of thousands of years of civilization heritage, Han nationality formed group ideology as the core of the thinking mode. So when they look at things and deal with the problem, they make the whole placed in individual, that individual is in the whole network of a link or a molecule is a stable solid fusion. In the observation and treatment, they also tend to start from the widest part, from big to small, integrated, coordinated symmetry, hierarchy clear, they have Shun order clearly, subjective and objective, which is a kind of mutual adaptation and harmonious and unified relationship. Considering the problem, they also tend to peripheral hand from the broad, Then gradually reduce the train of thought, consider the specific details, so their thinking is characterized by intuitive, comprehensive and holistic, thinking in a way to intuition, specific and round type as the characteristics.

Chinese people develop to think in images, it contains pay attention to the visual experience. In theory, it tends to focus on experience. Widely used image analogy method, expressing ideas by means of the image of an object. Its thought can forget the image, beyond the experience and gain intuition understanding. Chinese people are used to thinking in images in the article, that is the rhetoric Hua Li, than the means, word image, clear, vivid.

Westerners are good at the abstract thinking and logical thinking. In the Ou Meiwen, according to Aristotle's principle, they set up a set of logical system. Since about 2500 years, the use of syllogistic reasoning has become the cornerstone of the thought of western people. Western people are good at expression of things by using the abstract concept, pay more attention to the use of abstract thinking ability. Performance in the language is the extensive use of meaning, which are summarized, the alleged general abstract nouns to form a rational concept of complex.

Chinese traditional culture emphasizes on the unity of human, heaven and earth, harmony between man and man, harmony between man and nature, for harmony between man and nature is the highest realm. Philosophers of ancient China also believe that the whole world is unity, whole and part in strict distinction is unnecessary, cannot as a molecular displaced the whole body. In the Chinese harmony of ideological influence, in ideology, mode of thinking tend to seek the overall, for the general, for comprehensive and perception on intuition. Although Chinese people are accustomed to putting things into opposing two aspects, but the two opposite is seen as an integral Whole body. Man and nature in unity and the overall structure. Therefore, heaven and man, yin and Yang, spiritual and material is indivisible unity. The formation of the Chinese people's thinking habits, but also the Chinese people's dialectics.

Western people from ancient times to the present tendency in the universe are divided into two very different worlds, phase separation between man and nature, the binary opposition. Western people on original sin, self consciousness for their sin and perseverance conquer nature, transformation from I to be divine, self-help helps to reach to the oneness of God and. They think all things in the world are opposite, all divided into two: man and nature, material and spiritual, social and natural. Phase separation between man and nature determines the United States all bipartite, treat things habits analysis way of thinking and logic mode of thinking. They pay more attention to the intrinsic difference and opposition, For the world of opposites, either this or that reasoning judgment.

3. Conclusion

Whether it is the face theory of brown &Levinson or Chinese people’s view on face, they both make people take effective politeness strategies to make the communication more successful. However as R. Mao proposed relative face orientation conception: politeness points to a kind of ideal social identity, or points to the ideal individual autonomy. Therefore different culture is the origin of the differences between Chinese and western face, we must be acknowledged to the cross-cultural differences.

Politeness itself is a code of conduct that whether the daily life behavior has a moral and ethical significance or not. It includes that people make efforts to maintain the harmonious interpersonal relations in the daily life. If people have different culture background, they will have different ways to express politeness. If we are familiar with these differences, we were well aware of the differences in their origins in order to have a successful cross-cultural communication. People in today's society can’t depend on the communication, people have to meet communicative needs by exchanging some ideas. And they need to take needs of both sides into account. You need to understand the differences and similarities of both Chinese and exotic cultures. Only by this way can we realize decent and successful communication in cultural exchanges, business negotiations, correspondence, foreign affairs reception and other activities. Due to the different cultural background, people in china and western countries have different understanding about it. There would be something unexpected, if we don’t pay attention to it. Therefore, we should pay more attention to it to avoid an unhappy intercultural communication.