43
Affirmative Evidence For A Nation's Face
Of special significance to the present study are the figures on Lines 7 and 8. Five sentences talk about factors of face of athletes and face attributes of the country. These figures suggest that the concept of face at collective level is equally strong with that at individual and delegation level. Since these sentences represent more complete depictions of the concept of face, the significance of these sentences is relatively great. The fact that eight of them relate factors of face of a delegation to face attributes of the country reaffirms the existence of face at collective and particularly at national level.
Delving into the collective levels, it is not difficult to find that the category of country/nation stands out as the strongest one. In Table 6, except in Column 3, the figures for the category of country/nation are larger than the other two categories: “people” and “party/government”. Similar conclusions could be drawn from the cross-tabulations between the levels of factors and attributes of face. Also, in Table 7, the proportion of the level of country/nation is even overwhelming. Two sentences attribute to people while 13 to country/nation. As such, the representative category of collective face seems to be the level of country/nation.
Evidence For Face-Building At National Levels
Further evidence for a nation's face could be found in thirty-five of the 3,782 value sentences. This small minority of the sample is by no means insignificant for it is a collection of sentences which cover the basic factors of face, other's reactions as well as the attributes of face (Table 8). 16 of them report factors of face at individual level and 18 of them at delegation level. Only one of them is at country level. As for the basic factors reported, four of them are on status, 21 of them are on performance, three of them are on moral behaviour, two of them on status and performance together, four of them on performance and moral behaviour, and one of them on all three factors together.
The fourth factor of face, other's reactions also sees more or less the same pattern. 14 of them are directed to individuals, 20 of them to delegation level, and only one of them is directed to country level. Still the majority is understandably at individual and delegation levels since they are the performers and representatives in the Games.