Research on Face in Communication Studies

Being a teacher and teacher educator: The antecedents of teacher educator identity among mentor teachers

“…Goffman's ideas about face have been adopted in several disciplines (Sueda, 2014). At one point, Lim and Bowers (1991) reconstructed an established conceptual framework (Brown & Levinson, 1978), arguing that face reflects three wants: Fellowship face (want to be included), autonomy face (want to not be imposed on) and competence face (want to have one's abilities respected).…”

“…More recent research has shown that the significance of Lim and Bowers' three faces varies with context (Sueda, 2014). It is reasonable to consider the competence face to be particularly significant to the teaching placement, since the goal is precisely for student teachers to develop their teaching competence and be able to convincingly demonstrate their competence.…”

“…Goffman (1967, p. 12) defined "face-work" similarly as "the actions taken by a person to make whatever he is doing consistent with face". Goffman's foundational claims were: 1) that people normally value their own and others' faces; 2) that one normally attempts to save their own and the other party's face; 3) that when one loses face, one tries to restore or repair it; 4) that when one party loses face, the other party often tries to help them restore or repair it (Goffman, 1967;Sueda, 2014).…”

“…Different contexts are characterised by different repertoires of face-work practices (Sueda, 2014). In the school context, Goffman's claim that people are normally concerned about maintaining other people's faces (claim 4) has been investigated in two studies on mentoring: Vásquez's ( 2004) study of feedback in mentoring teaching assistants, and Wajnryb's (1998) study of supervision of teachers.…”

“…There is a shortage of this sort of studies in research on mentoring in schools, as well as in other contexts (Sueda, 2014).…”