Introduction

Abstract

"As a scholarly concept, face has existed for about 60 years. It was first introduced to academic discourse by Erving Goffman. In his seminal work Interaction ritual: Essays on face-to-face behavior, he defines face as “the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact” or “an image of self delineated in terms of approved social attributes” (1967, p. 5). Goffman’s understanding of face is visibly influenced by the Chinese conceptualisation presented by Hsien Chin Hu (1944) and by some sociological theories (e.g., Émile Durkheim, 1915). Goffman’s ideas about face and facework became an inspiration for many scholars and researchers in different academic disciplines." (fragm.)