1) to confirm the existence of a nation's face as evidenced
in press reports;
2) to find out how the press works for the concept of face;
and in this process
3) to establish an analytical framework for the study of face
in the press.
The primary concern of this article is the concept of face in China. Thus the questions as to the existence of a nation's face and the press presentations of face would be specifically directed to the situation in China. Also, it is a paper with a concern for the treatment of face in the press, so the focus is on how the concept works as it appears in the press, and not on how it works in the actual world. The perspective so adopted would be the communication perspective. It is neither the social-psychological nor the political aspects of face on which the present paper attempts to concentrate. Whereas the third question as to the establishment of an analytical framework, it is hoped that it can apply to face studies in general, and particularly in written media. Before looking into the press presentations of face, it is necessary to elucidate how the concept itself works in order to extract the necessary elements for the present research.
An Anatomy Of Face
In many previous discussions of the concept of face, it has been pointed out that there are two main components within the concept. For instance, Hu Hsien-chin, in her seminal paper, discerns lian from mianzi within face. Finding such a classification problematic in the lexical context of the Southern Chinese dialects, on which they examine, King and Myers (1977) propose the terms 'moral mian' and ‘social/positional mian'. In a similar way, Goffman hints at such a distinction in his definition of face (Goffman, 1969:3). He writes that face 'is an image of self delineation in terms of approved social attributes... as when a person makes a good showing for his profession or religion by making a good showing for himself. The citing of profession versus religion, meaning the differentiation into the secular and the spiritual components, hints that face consists of two distinctive elements.
As members in society, individuals would each be entitled to face, or lian, according to Hu Hsien-chin. It is:
...the respect of the group for a man with a good moral reputation: