The Problematic Occurrences That Induced and Facilitated the Process of Face Threat

The next point that we should touch are the problematic occurrences that induced and facilitated the process of face threat. Since after a number of problems emerged, negative attitudes towards both the situation and members of the others predisposed a negative outcome. However, all evoked problems were bases on contradictory perspectives.

1. The first problem concerned hotel arrangement. Based on a presumption the British intentionally reserved an in-expansive hotel for the delegation, since they believed that this way, the Chinese will be left with more money to spend. On the contrary, members of the delegation interpreted this act as disrespectful as they believed that hotel the was beneath their status.
2. After this rather negative debut, the second problem arose during the first official meeting which was held in a quite small room with a long table within it. Members of the delegation sat around the table, whereas the host was sitting next to a wall, hence some guests did not face them, they did not see them. The Chinese claimed that the British enforced status differences deliberately. Nevertheless, the British believed that problems were caused by the room’s limited size, and they have also admitted that room was inappropriate, thus they could choose another one instead.
3. After this insult, another concerning status again emerged during the meeting. After the chairman held an opening speech, members of the delegation were asked to introduce themselves.  The Chinese intended to give a return speech in which they express their gratitude for the hospitality, yet the British interrupted them and instead asked for a short self-introduction. Clearly, the Chinese were not as thankful as they showed, hence social norms and formality can be accounted for the speech.
4. The next problem concerned disrupted rapport. At this stage, the delegation had enough therefore nether they wanted to attend meeting nor were they willing to go sightseeing, shopping. On the other hand, the British did not decode this, so instead, they offered more tours and places to see. However, as a result of this, quite a number of workers had to neglect their work at the company.
5. Another issue was that the Chinese intended to stay in London for a night, but they did not receive a direct response. They decided to talk with Tim, the China Sales Manager. However, Tim wasn’t there, as he was overseas, but they left contact numbers. As the Chinese regarded Tim as a friend they presumed that as soon as he will get home, he will either officially or unofficially will get in touch with them. They assumed that Tim will appear in their hotel or at least telephone them. After all, when Tim arrived, he wanted to spend time with his family, thus, he chose to neglect the guests.        
   

So, these were those issues that were highly problematic, but which stem form only contradictory perspectives.

As it was asserted earlier, Brown and Levinson maintain that there are two faces, a positive and a negative one. However, other theorists (e.g. Matsumoto and Mao) have criticized this specification, since a bilateral perspective seems to be inconvenient, and show the tendency of polarisation. Thy argue that this distinction is too general to capture the dynamic face concerns. The authors believe that people’s face sensitivities are best analysed from an attribute perspective, since people experience a sense of face threat/loss/gain when there is a mismatch between an attribute that they are claiming and an attribute they perceive to be ascribed by others.                                                                

As it was mentioned above, problems primarily revolved around concerns about status and prestige. Based on the Chinese perspective, the British failed to give them the face they deserved. Since sales managers have a high social prestige, the Chinese believed that the hosts failed to accurately acknowledge this.                                                                                         As it was being referred to earlier, face threating acts derived from the incompatible expectations with regard to the hotel reservation. The implied or rather perceived superior and subordinate arrangement of seats. The omitted needs, as members of the delegation intended to hold a return speech. And finally, the last act was the inconsistent perceptions on relationships.

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