Face-Negotiation Theory is a theory conceived by Stella Ting-Toomey in 1985, to understand how people from different cultures manage rapport and disagreements. The theory posited "face", or self-image when communicating with others, as a universal phenomenon that pervades across cultures. In conflicts, one's face is threatened; and thus the person tends to save or restore his or her face. This set of communicative behaviors, according to the theory, is called "facework". Since people frame the situated meaning of "face" and enact "facework" differently from one culture to the next, the theory poses a cross-cultural framework to examine facework negotiation. It is important to note that the definition of face varies depending on the people and their culture and the same can be said for the proficiency of facework. According to Ting-Toomey's theory, most cultural differences can be divided by Eastern and Western cultures, and her theory accounts for these differences.
Background
In this theory, "face" is a metaphor for self-image, which originated from two Chinese conceptualizations: lien and mianzi. Lien is the internal moral face that involves shame, integrity, debasement, and honor issues. Mien-tzu, on the other hand, is the external social face that involves social recognition, position, authority, influence and power.
Erving Goffman also situated "face" in contemporary Western research and conceptualized the terms lien and mien-Tzu as identity and ego. He noted that face is a concern for one's projected image that is both immediate and spontaneous and is tied to the dynamics of social interaction. Goffman also notes that face is a part of a performance, in which performance is day-to-day activity that each individual uses to influence others. In a way, Western society views face as a marketable asset. The performance of "face" can be for the good of others or it can be for the good of one's self. Correspondingly, "facework" denotes actions taken to maintain consistency between the self and public line. The two forms of facework include restorative and preventive. Restorative facework is the act of reinstating face after the loss of it has taken place; the preventive face is the act of communicating to safeguard the threat of face being lost. Further research by Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson on politeness suggests that the desire for face is a universal concern. Brown and Levinson further suggested that face can refer to two wants of the individual- the positive face that necessitates approval by others and the negative face that requires that one's actions or thoughts are unimpeded by others. Thus participant's wants are of more importance than the interaction itself in a face-saving view of politeness. In fact, researchers Brown and Levinson posit that face is something that "is emotionally invested, and can be lost, maintained, or enhanced, and must be constantly attended to in interaction". Levinson and Brown did not, however, address culture-specific norms, which is why Ting-Toomey decided to do so in this theory.
Ting-Toomey expanded this thinking and conceptualized face as an individual's claimed sense of favorable social self-image in a relational and network context. Facework is defined as clusters of communicative behaviors that are used to enact self-face and to uphold, challenge/threaten, or support the other person's face. In other words, facework is the sum of all messages received by someone that helps them gain or lose face.
With these concepts and frameworks, the face-negotiation theory investigates intercultural conflict styles. The perceived or actual conflict differences revolved around three issues: content, relational, and identity. Content conflict refers to the substantive issues external to the individual involved. Relational conflict refers to how individuals define, or would like to define, the particular relationship in that particular conflict episode. The identity-based conflict concerns issues of identity confirmation-rejection, respect-disrespect, and approval-disapproval. In this way, identity issues are tied closely to culture-based face-orientation factors. A face-threatening episode is an identity expectancy violation episode. Thus, the face-negotiation theory views conflict, intercultural conflict in particular, as a situation that demands active facework management from the two interdependent conflict parties. It can also be noted that in face-negotiation, individuals negotiate face not only with others but with themselves, as well.