Chinese Discourse and Interaction - Theory and Practice - Yuling Pan
7. ‘Face’ in Taiwanese business interactions: From emic concepts to emic practices
Chinese Discourse and Interaction - Theory and Practice - Yuling Pan
Wei-Lin Melody Chang [+]
University of Wollongong
Description
This chapter opens by first discussing the data and methodology which are employed in the subsequent analysis of emic face concepts and practices in Taiwanese business interactions. It is suggested that operationalising the distinction between emic concepts and practices requires recourse to different approaches to analysing discourse. This is followed by the analytical section which is divided into two parts. In the first part, transcripts of ethnographic interviews with business people are carefully examined to investigate how native informants of Taiwanese Chinese conceptualise face when doing business, drawing from these informants’ knowledge and experiences in relation to face.An analysis of the interactional achievement of face in an extended audiovisual recording of an authentic business negotiation then provides insight into how face may be strategically threatened in interaction, reflecting an example of what we have termed here emic face practices. This is followed by a brief consideration of the implications of this analysis for the role of theorising face in the analysis of discourse and social phenomena, more generally, and for future research on face in Chinese-speaking societies, in particular.