Face, Communication and Social Interaction - Francesca Bargiela-Chiappini
14. Finding face between gemeinschaft and gesellschaft: Greek perceptions of the in-group
Face, Communication and Social Interaction - Francesca Bargiela-Chiappini
Marina Terkourafi [+]
University of Illinois
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I am a pragmatician with wide-ranging interests in the social parameters that constrain the generation of meanings locally (socio-pragmatics), the psycholinguistic processes by which these meanings are acquired and implemented in real time (experimental pragmatics), and the historical processes that shape the interactional potential of language resources over time (historical pragmatics).
Description
This paper attempts to flesh out an integrated theoretical proposal about the application of the notion of face to different socio-historical settings. Following a new definition of a universalising notion of face, I look to the field of sociology, and in particular to the work of the German sociologist Tönnies about Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, for a principled way to link the proposed abstract, universalising notion of face with its several, seemingly diverging, local interpretations. In the last part of this essay, I explore the explanatory potential of this proposal taking contemporary Greek society as a case-study.