The face of others: Triadic and dyadic interactions in Korea and the United States

Abstract

The concept of group face has been used to explain facework thatrelates to members of in-groups. Hahn and Hatfield (2011) looked at situationsin which a family member of a Speaker commits a possible offense towards aHearer. They tested the prediction that collectivist Koreans would apologize forthe family member at a greater rate than individualist Americans who wouldbe focused upon individual face not group face. This prediction was not confirmedas the chance of an apology for the two groups was not significantlydifferent among the university students participating. Interpreting speaker responsesin such triadic interactions, however, was difficult because there wasno comparison point to classic dyadic interactions. Without this comparisonthe facework performed could be unrelated to group face. The current papercreates this comparison point by adapting the methods of Hahn and Hatfieldfor dyadic interaction. A Discourse Completion Task was given to 80 speakers.There was no significant difference in apology rates between the two countriesin either the triadic or dyadic studies, plus a complex interaction of each factorwith Gender. The results argue for the significance of face management of individualsand groups not in immediate interaction, which has implications forthe distinction of face and identity.