A critique towards face consideration in high and low context

culture

Proposed by Ting-Toomey Stella in 1985, a communication professor at California State

University, Fullerton, face-negotiation is the theory that explains how different cultures affect

communication and the conflict management. Ting-Toomey (1985) argues that, because the

consistence of unique norms, beliefs and traditions that affects the identification of its member,

each culture provides different frame of reference for individual or group reaction. In face-

negotiation theorys core assumptions, Ting-Toomey (1985) further states that, people in all

cultures try to maintain and negotiate face which is a public image of individual or group, that

society sees and evaluates based on cultural norms and values in all communication situations.

There are three dimensions of face:

Autonomy face: A desire to appear independent, in control and responsible

Fellowship face: A desire to be seen as cooperative, accepted and loved

Competence face: A desire to appear intelligent and capable

(Miller 2005)

However, each culture prefers different dimension of face. According to Harry Triandis, a

psychologist at University of Illinois, there are two types of cultures: individualistic and

collectivistic (cited in Griffin 2008). Providing the conceptual linkage among cultural variability

dimensions, face concerns, facework behaviors and conflict style (Ting-Toomey 1988, cited in

Gudykunst 2003), face-negotiation theory helps mediators, theorists and so on in finding the best

and effective communication across culture. In order to illuminate the theory, I will use two

television commercials of Pepsi in different cultures which are the US and China to examine

how the dimensions of face affect the plan of these TVCs in the individualistic and low

collectivistic culture.

Figure 1: Reproduced from BBDO New York 2009

The first TVC is made from New York Agency, about a clumsy penguin that wishes to be like

the bird but he always falls down in an icy island. As he is very sad about himself, he goes to a

warehouse and recycles the junks. After several days, with the exciting music playing in the

background, he gets out of the warehouse confidently with a machine on the back and then, he

and the machine starts to fly into the sky in front of the surprise of other penguins and the birds.

He drops into a pool and slips into a chair. Then, he sees a Pepsi bottle and drinks it. The TVC

ends with the girl who is sitting next to him throws for him a shrimp and the slogan appears I

can with Pepsi logo.

In contrast, the second TVC takes place in a pagoda in China and has a traditional music playing

in the background. A Western kid comes to a pagoda which places in a high mountain and

knocks the gate. An old monk opens the gate and lets the kid come in. After walking around and

seeing many monks, the kid gets a monk to shave his hair and wears the monk clothes. After

that, the kid starts to learn martial art. However, the old monk (might be the master) seems to be

disappointed about the kid when the kid cannot do keep balance or punch to a stone shield. The

kid also feels disappointed about himself. However, after many years, the kid grows up and he is

in the center of many monks and begins the test. Now, he can complete the test easily by

breaking the bricks, woods and stones by hands and legs. After the test, the master puts a can of

Pepsi up and so do every one. The boy (now becomes a monk) imitates others to put up the Pepsi

can and drinks. After drinking, he looks at everyone again and sees a weird symbol in their heads

and the flat, then looks at the Pepsi can again, he shouts: Ahhhhh and knocks his head into the

can. The master finally smiles, and when the boy stands up, all the monks come and cheer him

up. The TVC ends with Pepsi logo and a slogan Ask for more.

With the same idea of promoting Pepsi, the application of these TVCs above is quite different.

While the first TVC emphasizes the importance of being independent and in control for the

clumsy penguin, the second TVC highlights the importance of being accepted and loved for the

foreign kid in the Chinese pagoda. As the penguin feels sad because he cannot fly like the bird,

he goes to the warehouse and makes an innovation that can helps him feel more confident and fly

to somewhere else. After arriving at the pool, the clumsy penguin now becomes very cool and

independent in his own life so that he can enjoy drinking Pepsi and relax in the swimming pool.

The slogan I can also enhances the idea of being independent and in control for everyone. On

the other hand, while the foreign kid seems to be sad and lost because he cannot do the training

properly, he has tried so hard to pass the test in order to get accepted and loved by his groups.

After having the symbol on his head, the kid seems to be happy when everyone is coming to

cheer him up. The slogan Ask for more enhances the joys and happiness of drinking Pepsi and

sharing fun with the others. The differences between two TVCs might be due to the cultural

effects. The first TVC is for the US, which has individualistic culture, emphasizes the goals,

values and needs of individual over the in-group, while the second TVC for China, which has

collectivistic culture, highlights the goals, values and needs of the in-group over the individual.

According to Ting-Toomey & Cocroft 1994, people in individualistic culture will be more

concerned with autonomy face, which is a desire to appear independent, in control and

responsible and self-face maintain. Ting-Toomey 2005 further explains that, the individualistic

culture values the personal rights, freedom and the do it yourself attitude. Thus, in order to

communicate effectively with the US audience, the producer has to make a TVC to be

appropriate with its culture which is strengthening the idea of autonomy face through the use of

Pepsi. In this TVC, the message from the producer to the audience might be drinking Pepsi can

help people to be more confident about themselve so that they can take adventure for being

independent and in control of their own life. For the people in collectivistic culture, they will be

more concern with connection with other people (Ting-Tommey & Cocroft 1994). For this

reason, with the use of creative humor, the producer of Chinese monk TVC has highlighted the

values of fellowship, which is a desire to be seen as cooperative, accepted and loved through

drinking Pepsi. The message in this TVC to the audience might be drinking Pepsi can enhance

the connection between everyone. In this TVC, the imfortance of the in-group differentates the

values of individualistic and collestivistic culture. According to Triandis 1988, in-group are

groups that are important to members and groups for which individuals will make scarifies

(cited in Gudykunst 2003). Although the groups can be the same for both cultures, the influence

of groups in collesticvistic culture are stronger and last much longer than in individualistic

culture (Gudykunst 2003).

The strength of the two commercials above is that they have applied different dimension about

face in order to fit with different cultures and communicate effectively with its audience.

Moreover, the US is a low-context culture which is meaning derives from the verbal content of

the message (Hall 1976), so message of the ad can be predicted easily through the music

background and penguins actions without cultural knowledge requirements. However, as China

is a high-context culture which is verbal content of the message is only part of the meaning.

Interactions in these cultures require an understanding of social situation and relationships

among participants and cultural norms (Hall 1976), the limitation of the Chinese monks TVC is

that for people who are not familiar with collectivistic culture, they can be misunderstood that

the monks are not friendly and isolating the kid because he is forgeiner. In addition, as the kid is

from an individualistic culture, the audience is not clear that whether he just wants to be stronger

or accepted and loved by the monks.Therefore, in order to avoid conflict and make the message

is more effective and persuasive, the producer should consider to express the needs of the kid

like in the first TVC, the penguin looks at the birds and starts to imitate them.

As different culture has different method to negotiate face, face-negotiation theory provides a

critical look at intercutural communication for theorists, PR practitioners, managers, mediators,

trainers, and consultants to find the best and effective communication with their clients.

However, face-negotiation theory can becomes limited in a complex situation. For instance,

although I live in collectivistic culture, Ive studied in an international university for two years,

my concern about face can get mixed between three dimensions of faces, which are autonomy,

fellowship and ccompetence. For some situation like in a job interview, I would concern more

about being independent, responsible and smart for the employer, whearas in daily life, I would

concern more about the connection with my friends.The mixed dimension of face also can

happen with the young generation today who can get exposed to the mass globalization trend and

get affected somehow by the Western culture. Therefore, I look forwad to see an updated version

of face-negotiation toward complex communitcation situations. In conclusion, in spite of some

limitations addressing above, many scholars has agreed that face-negotiation theory is a

fundamental tool in analysing commnunication across culture.

Word counts:

Reference:

Ebel, R 2009, Pepsi: Penguin, Television commercial, 13 May, 2009, viewed 1 January 2012, .

Griffin, E 2008, A first look at communication theory, 7th edn, Irwin/McGraw-Hill, New York,

NY.

Gudykunst, WB 2003, Cross-Cutural and Intercutural Communication, Sage, Thousand Oks,

California.

Hall, ET 1976, Beyond culture, Doubleday, New York, NY.

Miller, K 2005, Communication theories: Perspectives, processes, and contexts, 2nd edn,

McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.

Pepsi Commercial - Shaolin Temple Kung Fu, video recording, advertbox, viewed 1 Janurary

2012,

< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcOZAyj4w94>.

Ting-Toomey, S & Cocroft, BA 1994, Face and facework: Theoretical and research issues, in S Ting-Toomey (ed.), The challenge of facework: Cross-cultural and interpersonal issues,

Suny Press, Albany, NY, pp. 213-235.

Ting-Toomey, S & Gudykunst, WB 2005,The Matrix of Face: An Updated Face-Negotiation

Theorym, in WB Gudykunst (ed.), Theorizing About Intercultural Communication, CA: Sage

Thousand Oaks, pp. 7192.

Ting-Toomey, S 1985, Toward a Theory of Conflict and Culture, in WB Gudykunst, LB Stewart

& S Ting-Toomey (ed.), Communication, Culture, and Organizational Processes, CA: Sage,

Beverly Hills, pp71-86.