Face as a research focus in interpersonal pragmatics: Relational and emic perspectives

• Studying face apart from im/politeness will benefit theory and research in interpersonal pragmatics.
• Emic conceptualizations of face have potential to provide important insights into etic theorizing.
• Face Constituting Theory provides a culture-general theory amenable to culture-specific construal.
• Face Constituting Theory accommodates the Japanese emic conceptualization of face.

Research in interpersonal pragmatics will benefit from treating the study of face as a focus of research distinct from the study of im/politeness. Doing so will open research to broader issues such as the insights that examining relationships and emic conceptualizations can provide in theorizing. Face Constituting Theory (Arundale, 1999 and Arundale, 2010a) conceptualizes face apart from politeness, departing from other theories in providing an interactional and relational understanding of face. Outlining FCT's major concepts leads to an in depth examination of how this second order, culture-general explanation accommodates the first order, Japanese emic conceptualization of face. FCT's explanation offers insights into this unique emic conceptualization, and examining the Japanese conceptualization both clarifies theoretical concepts, and facilitates research that applies FCT in studying face in other cultural groups.