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Article published In: Pragmatics and Society
Vol. 8:2 (2017) ► pp.208–230

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Culture-generality and culture-specificity of face

Insights from argumentative talk in Iranian dissertation defenses

 | Abadan Branch, Islamic Azad University
Published online: 10 August 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.8.2.03iza
Abstract
In theorizing face as relational and interactional, 2010. Constituting face in conversation: face, facework, and interactional achievement. Journal of Pragmatics 421: 2078–2105. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar argues that face encompasses a dialectic of relational connection and separation, which is culture-general, but can be voiced differently in different cultures. This paper examines how Arundale’s Face Constituting Theory (FCT) relates to the culture-specific emic understanding of face in Persian culture in talk in dissertation defense sessions. The data are two argumentative excerpts of natural interaction from a corpus of 12 PhD defense sessions in Iran. It is first argued that relational connection and separation is voiced as bonding and differentiation. Second, it is shown how the Persian emic concept of aberu can be accommodated in FCT. The analyses, grounded in CA and FCT, show how the dialectic of bonding and differentiation is interactionally achieved in the practices of aberu.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Persian emic concepts of face
    • 2.1Aberu, shaxsiat, and heysiat
    • 2.2Aberu as relational bonding and differentiation
    • 2.3Aberu in dissertation defenses
  • 3.Analysis
    • 3.1Statistics
    • 3.2Jingoism
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Transcription conventions
  • References
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