Geyer (Japanese language and linguistics, U. of Wisconsin-Madison) reports findings from a study documenting facework constructed and displayed in multiparty interactions among adult native speakers of Japanese. The research is based on data gathered from teachers participating in faculty meetings at several secondary schools in the Tokyo metropolitan area. The subjects range in age from the early 20s to late 50s, and range from recent college graduates to teachers with 30-plus years of experience. Geyer suggests a revision of Erving Goffman's (1967) notion of face, and applies this conceptualization to the analysis of several social actions that have rarely been dealt with in politeness studies, among them collaborative disagreement, teasing, and talking about troubles. For researchers in discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and Japanese language. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
