[1] Although Chinese writer Lin Yutang claimed "face cannot be translated or defined",[2] these definitions have been created: In China, in particular, the concepts of mianzi, lian and yan play an extremely important role in the fabric of society.
It is built up through initial high position, wealth, power, ability, through cleverly establishing social ties to a number of prominent people, as well as through avoidance of acts that would cause unfavorable comment.
English face meaning "prestige; honor, respect, dignity, status, reputation, social acceptance, or good name.
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines "save face" as: "To keep, protect or guard (a thing) from damage, loss, or destruction", and elaborates, 8f.
[15]Among the English words of Chinese origin, lose face is an uncommon verb phrase and a unique semantic loan translation.
Semantic loans extend an indigenous word's meaning in conformity with a foreign model (e.g., the French realiser, lit.
The vast majority of English words from Chinese are ordinary loanwords with regular phonemic adaptation (e.g., chop suey < Cantonese tsap-sui 雜碎 lit.
A few are calques where a borrowing is blended with native elements (e.g., chopsticks < Pidgin chop "quick, fast" < Cantonese kap 急 lit.
[18]In Japan, the concept of face is known as mentsu (面子), which is defined as “the public image people want to present within a given social framework”.
[24] From a young age, children are encouraged by parents to become socially shared images of the ideal person through the phrase “rashii” (らしい；similar to).
[24] The continual effort to improve oneself as summarized by the saying gambarimasu (頑張ります) can be viewed as an expression to secure the esteem of others, illustrating high motivations to maintain public face in Japanese culture.
According to Matsumoto 1988, “To attend to each other’s face in Japanese culture is to recognize each other’s social position and to convey such a recognition through the proper linguistic means, including formulaic expressions, honorifics, verbs of giving and receiving, and other “relation-acknowledging devices”.
[28] Common greetings in Japanese such as yoroshiku onegaishimasu (よろしくお願いします; I make a request and I hope things go well) highlight the debt-sensitive culture in Japan.
[citation needed] However, both Russian and Chinese concepts of "face" are close to each other in their focus on person being, first and foremost, part of larger community.
[32] The importance of the concept of face in Russia may be seen imprinted into amassment of proverbs and sayings, where the word лицо is used as a reference to one's character or reputation, for instance упасть в грязь лицом (lit.
'two-facedness' or 'the absence of a well-defined face') denoting a negative trait, потерять лицо, similarly to упасть в грязь лицом, but stronger, meaning to "lose reputation or social standing", and личина meaning both "face" and at the same time "the essence", when being used to describe a person, showing that there is high expectation of "inner self" and "outer self" of a person being in high accord with each other, looking from the framework of Russian culture.
[citation needed] Among South Slavs, especially in Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian, the word obraz (образ) is used as a traditional expression for honor and the sociological concept of face.
Medieval Slavic documents have shown that the word has been used with various meanings, such as form, image, character, person, symbol, face, figure, statue, idol, guise and mask.
[10] The concept seems to relate to two different meanings, from one side Chinese consumers try to increase or maintain their reputation (mianzi) in front of socially and culturally significant others (e.g. friends); on the other hand, they try to defend or save face.
[citation needed] Mianzi is not only important to improve the consumer's reputation in front of significant others, but rather it is also associated with feelings of dignity, honor, and pride.
[43] Chinese consumers tend to believe that if they buy some brands it is easier to be accepted in the social circles of powerful and wealthy people.
[43] Consumers feel proud, special, honoured, even more valuable as individuals if they can afford to buy brands that can enhance their mianzi.
Therefore, some branded products and services, especially those that require conspicuous consumption (e.g. smartphones, bags, shoes), are chosen because they foster feelings of pride and vanity in the owner.
[41] In summary, mianzi is a cultural concept that relates to the social, emotional and psychological dimension of consumption and has an impact on consumers’ perception of their self and purchase decisions.
[44][45][46][47] In human interactions, people are often forced to threaten either an addressee's positive and/or negative face, and so there are various politeness strategies to mitigate those face-threatening acts.
[48] Concerning the concept of negative face, obtaining mianzi in Chinese culture results in the recognition of one’s claim to respect from the community, not freedom of action .
[49][45][page needed] Oetzel et al. (2000) defined "facework" as "the communicative strategies one uses to enact self-face and to uphold, support, or challenge another person's face".
[54] Stella Ting-Toomey developed Face Negotiation Theory to explain cultural differences in communication and conflict resolution.
But in the Chinese literature used here, including also the short stories, I did not once find the phrase "losing face"; and there was no clear case of suicide because of shame alone.
Name dropping, eagerness to associate with the rich and famous, the use of external status symbols, sensitivity to insult, lavish gift-giving, the use of titles, the sedulous avoidance of criticism, all abound, and require considerable readjustment for someone used to organizing social life by impersonal rules, frankness, and greater equality.