The Concept of Face. A Pedagogical Approach to Politeness
The Concept of Face. A Pedagogical Approach to Politeness

Summary/Abstract: The paper aims at offering an insight into the politeness concept and its pragmatic interpretations and applications at discourse level for the benefit of discourse participants that are in need of negotiating common outcomes. The pragmatic concept of face is fundamental to the understanding of the theory of modern politeness and it constitutes the most important asset that is to be gained, preserved and enhanced in daily and professional settings. Promoting one’s face in a meaningful yet considerate way, bearing an overall positive effect on the communication sequence at hand is not an easy task and it poses challenges for the most experienced communicators. Modern language instructors and trainers could offer the opportunity of enhancing this pragmatic competence by drawing awareness to face-related dilemmas and its constituting elements. The consequences of including the explicit study of the politeness phenomenon and the construct of face would represent a major stepping stones towards the effective training of professional language learners. The paper thus rests on new developments within the study of pragmatic politeness drawing on the most representative studies to date on politeness theory and its relevance for a modern language instruction course. It also argues that rapport management is the approach to politeness teaching and applications sensitizing students to make use of intelligent and meaningful communicative tools in order to gain recognition and face in interactions.

• Details
• Contents