Constituting face in conversation: Face, facework, and interactional achievement Robert B. Arundale * Department of Communication, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK 99775-5680, USA 1. Introduction Face and facework have been a focus of research in language pragmatics since Brown and Levinson (1987) introduced Goffman’s (1955) concepts in 1978. This article outlines a new theory of face and facework that addresses the question ‘‘How do participants achieve face in everyday talk?’’ Face Constituting Theory is distinct from existing theories because it rests upon two radical shifts in conceptual framing. First, Face Constituting Theory employs a new theoretical model of human communication, the Conjoint Co-constituting Model (Arundale, 1999), whose conceptual commitments are incommensu- rate with those of the encoding/decoding models of communication pervasive in existing theories of face and facework (Arundale, 2008). This new model draws upon current theory in the study of human communication, as well as on research in conversation analysis, to explain the achieving of meaning and action in everyday talk and associated non-linguistic conduct. Second, Face Constituting Theory employs a new conceptualization of ‘face’ in terms of the relationship two or more persons create with one another in interaction, a conceptualization distinct from the understandings of face in terms of person- centered attributes like social identity, public self-image, or social wants that characterize existing theories (Arundale, 2006, 2009). This new conceptualization draws upon current theory and research in interpersonal communication in explaining Journal of Pragmatics 42 (2010) 2078–2105 ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 17 December 2009 Accepted 23 December 2009 Keywords: Face Facework Communication Interaction Conversation Relationship ABSTRACT Face Constituting Theory addresses the question ‘‘How do participants achieve face in everyday talk?’’ explaining face and facework as achieved by participants engaged in face- to-face communication in situated relationships. Outlining the theory involves first sketching the Conjoint Co-constituting Model of Communication as a conceptualization of the achieving of meaning and action in interaction, and second conceptualizing face as a relational phenomenon at both culture-general and culture-specific levels. Using these conceptualizations, Face Constituting Theory explains face as participants’ interpretings of relational connectedness and separateness, conjointly co-constituted in talk/conduct-in- interaction. Face Constituting Theory adds to this explanation a new conceptualization of how of face interpretings are evaluated as threatening to, in stasis, or supportive of relationships, drawing into a single explanation the full range of observations on facework from outright face threat, through face maintenance, to outright face support. Consistent with ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, Face Constituting Theory is framed from the participant’s perspective, and applying the theory in examining the achievement of face in an instance of everyday interaction both illustrates the application of the new theory in research, and indicates how it is distinct from the approaches existing theories employ in studying face and facework. ß 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. * Tel.: +1 907 474 6799; fax: +1 907 474 5858. E-mail address: rbarundale@alaska.edu. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Pragmatics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma 0378-2166/$ – see front matter ß 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2009.12.021