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sentence, the national identity of the athletes is obvious. It is a sentence which glorifies some successful gymnasts from Eastern Europe but without mentioning the country or even the continent they are from. People surrounded the gymnasium and felt a sense of honour after obtaining their signatures. Whereas for the remaining 34 sentences which have themes of enhancing China, the national identity of the athletes, Chinese athletes and the Chinese delegation are never missed out, not to say the direct attribution of honour, influence and/or deference to the Chinese nation or the country. At this point, it is high time to see whether the press has done some facework.
Face-Enhancing Versus Face-Threatening Themes
In order to look at the degree of favourableness of the sentences in general, the number of sentences in each kind of face situation are counted and cross-tabulated by event (Table 9). Of the 3,782 value sentences, 2,134 are enhancing China, which account for 56.7% of the total (column 1). Against this is the collection of sentences with themes threatening the face of China or her athletes. This amounts to 585 and represents 15.5% of the total (column 2). As for sentences which concern other countries, athletes, people etc from other countries, the figures for enhancing vs threatening are 842 vs 212, which account for 22.3% and 5.6% of the total respectively (bottom of Columns 3 and 4).
TABLE 9. Cross-Tabulations of Theme By Event
E Face Situations (Theme) Count Row Enhancing China Threatening China Enhancing Others Threatening Others Total 1984 Olympics 771 187 207 53 1218 63.3% 15.4% 17.0% 4.4% 1985 Universiade 154 119 148 29 450 34.2% 26.4% 32.9% 6.4% 1986 Asian Games 924 183 362 100 1569 58.9% 11.7% 23.1% 6.4% 1987 Universiade 294 96 125 30 545 53.9% 17.6% 22.9% 5.5% Total Row% 2143 585 842 212 3782 56.7% 15.5% 22.3% 5.6%Legend Row = row percentage