Spontaneous face-to-face communication - Essay Example

Spontaneous face-to-face communication “We can all have together that transcends our individual experience of the moment” Durckheim, E. Introduction Language as a means of communication mediates not only information transfer, but also implies reflection of instantaneous interlocutor’s emotions transfer. At the same time, a high proficiency of using language in the process of communication enables an individual to “program” his interaction with other people. It is also important to be able to reflect the degree of politeness in the process of communication. It usually takes more time to reflect the real essence of an individual in the communication process, because a spontaneous communication cannot reflect the real essence and the real inner world of an individual. Politeness as an integrative component of individuals’ communication between each other is often considered as means to “convey, interpret, maintain and alter social relationships” (Brown and Levinsion, p.5). Brown and Levinson (1987) are two scientists who studied the important role of politeness in the process of communication. They claimed that people are polite across cultures in order to facilitate the process of communication or to soften their desires or intentions. In other words, these scientists claimed that being polite is a threat-mitigating strategy used by individuals. “Face” in the process of communication The concept of “face” is the primary operating concept for these scientists that means the “positive social value a person effectively claims for himself” (Brown and Levinsion 1987, p.5). Any person may be afraid of losing his face in the process of communication. Nevertheless, the scientists underline that there are possible positive and negative faces that an individual may have. A positive face is more relevant to the majority of social actors. It implies that an individual is striving for high social esteem, social approval etc. A negative face implies that an individual wants to be autonomous, have his/her own will etc. Acts of social interaction are considered to be Face Threatening Acts (FTAs). The basic points of Brown and Levinson’s models that would be integrative for our further investigation are the following: the power of hearer (H) prevails over the power of speaker (S); a social gap between H and S; the imposition of the raw act itself (Brown and Levinsion 1987, p.21). The Susan Boyle Phenomenon in the context of communication On the basis of the example of face-to-face communication between Susan Boyle, the winner of TV show Britain’s Got Talent with the judges, Brown and Levinson’s model would be discussed further on. The first model is appropriate for further discussion (Boyle was perceived by the judges at first glance as a clumsy woman with no talent; i.e. a superficial judgment). The communication situation is the following: at first the judges had a superficial attitude to this woman, but their claims in further interviews transfer their attitude into a positive one. Moreover, it can be claimed that the power of S prevails over the power of H. A nervous behavior of Boyle in the beginning of the interview, her mimics and gestures and the way she posed herself were amusing for the judges. Boyle remained patient and this patience was related to her politeness and in the result they reached mutual understanding only after she revealed her real essence and showed her unique face. A phenomenon of politeness was reflected in the following way: in the beginning of the conversation both actors played their social roles. When positive politeness became dominant, conversation became more lively and active. In the context of “positive politeness”, the social actors managed to satisfy “positive faces” of each other and reflected their devoted participation in this interaction. Coulmas (1998) describes such kind of an interaction in the following way: “the principal speaker sounds as if she invites the hearer into the conversation by creating opportunities for the hearer to insert short responses at the boundaries of phrasal units” (Coulmas 1998, p. 43). In this case, we can restore in our memories the way Boyle behaved and tried to entertain judges and the audience from the first second of her appearance on the stage. The judges were motivated to liven up the conversation with Boyle by her verbal and non-verbal invitation in the conversation. At first, they thought about her negative face and gave unpleasant comments and questions. After her singing they all confessed that they felt shy because they were cynics. Brown and Levinson’s model can be related to the phenomenon of Susan Boyle only partially. Boyle gradually presented herself and the judges showed their involvement in the conversation by summarizing and paraphrasing her statements. Therefore, in the process of this conversation we could see some forms of politeness. Politeness of Susan Boyle, as well as her face was positive and sincere, while judges showed insincere politeness and their negative face when they judged this woman only by her appearance. Thus, it is possible to differentiate several face-to-face communicative strategies used by Susan Boyle. Moreover, it is even more relevant to claim that on the example of her behavior and the Susan Boyle Phenomenon in general the researchers have identified further communicative and behavioral strategies: “be yourself” and “be prepared”. The realization of the first strategy “be yourself” is correlated with a “positive face” of Susan Boyle. She did not hire any stylists or clothing consultants, but she just appeared “as is” before the judges: “In fact, it looked like she dragged an old dress out of her closet to wear to the show. That probably did not help her, but she would have been much more the fool had she come out with tons of makeup and jewelry in tight fitting Spandex pants” (Susan Boyle). These lines appeared online and it is clear that people value and appreciate honesty and authenticity. There was one important lesson that Susan Boyle gave to the audience: one should not go out of his way and try to seem another person than he is in reality. Getting older is a natural process for all persons and there is no shame in it. In accordance with Brown and Levinson’s model, Susan Boyle had a negative face and she wanted to look autonomous and independent and indifferent to the masses. At the same time, she is a sincere and authentic woman and that is her positive face. Another strategy “be prepared” was hidden by Boyle perfectly. She behaved herself as if she had no talent and came out just to amuse the audience: “Susan Boyle could have been on the show and been herself, but if she sang poorly she would have been ridiculed like so many other contestants. In the end, she had to be better than mediocre, to have real talent to impress the judges. She not only had talent, but she chose a song to sing that highlighted her strengths” (Susan Boyle). As far as we can see, critics claim that there is a person’s transformation of Susan Boyle in the process of communication with judges and during her first performance. The chosen strategies are directed on preservation of Boyle’s positive face can be followed by many other people. These strategies are direct way to prove to the society that a person is authentic and there are no hidden cunning motifs behind his social actions. A person’s skills and talent is better shown when a person does not wear a certain social mask. It is much better to be yourself and be prepared for every contest, like Susan Boyle did. A spontaneous face-to-face communication can be threatening for one of the interlocutors and positive face can be easily lost. Nevertheless, the more time she spent on the stage and showed her talent, the more positive attitude she received from the audience and the judges. The operators did not unintentionally show faces of the audience when Susan Boyle first appeared on the stage. All of them were smiling or showing negative mimics when they saw this woman. The same way behaved the judges. A transformation of the public attitude happened when the judges tried to work at their communication: they gave a closer look at Ms. Boyle, they extracted the basic and the most important points from her performance; they learned this lesson and confessed that they were cynics. In other words, a transformed communication resulted in more attentive attitude to a speaker. In accordance with online critics: “the ability to learn from everyday experience like The Susan Boyle event is of paramount importance when working with, and within, creativity models” (Paris). Nevertheless, it is relevant to consider challenges of communication that were experienced by Susan Boyle. First of all, she was nervous, her hands were trembling and she could not properly answer to the judges’ questions. The second challenge is her inability to handle her emotions and the way she nervously pretended to be graceful. For example, when the music began to play, she looked down, gripped the microphone and then smiled…that was the point of her relief. Singing is her environment and her salvation. It looks as if she played a role of a social actor with a positive face and then when she started to sing she got rid of the social mask and sang authentically with no pretence. There were also strong points of Susan Boyle when she communicated with the judges: it is her presence and support of the audience (that occurred in the process of her singing). Susan was standing on the stage firmly even though she was nervous, with her shoulders back and eyes focused. She used her body language though self-deprecating and humorous, but that was the means that persuaded everyone of her authenticity. Another strong point that was helpful for her communication is the support of the audience. At first, she was afraid of all these mockeries, but then her singing has changed the attitude of the audience to this woman. Concerning other participants of this communication situation, the judges, they acted like showing their positive faces and wanted to be closer to the audience by supporting their negative and deriding attitude to Susan Boyle. Holden commented his communicative behavior in the following way: “its a very shallow thing to say but, obviously, the minute she walked onstage we all, and the audience, completely judged her on her appearance and everything else. And I hate saying that. But, you know, that true cliché, we judged a book by its cover, unfortunately, and were all very cynical” (Susan Boyle). The judges find the behavior of jeering and booing audience as an unpleasant misbehavior. Conclusion In the process of face-to-face communication very often non-verbal communication plays a greater role than verbal communication. The social actors communicate in accordance with templates and clichés and it is hard to prove to the audience who consider beauty as a virtue that a person who is not beautiful may be talented. The Phenomenon of Susan Boyle is a perfect illustration of the way people wear their positive or negative social faces and judge others in accordance with the social norms. Works cited 1. Brown, Penelope and Stephen C. Levinson, 1987. Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2. Coulmas, Florian, 1998. The handbook of sociolinguistics. Wiley-Blackwell. 3. Susan Boyle – Britain’s Got Talent 2009 Episode 1 - Saturday 11th April | HD High Quality. [online]. Available at: [Accessed 18 June 2011]. 4. Paris, M.J. Face-to-Face Communication - Old Fashioned? Not! [online]. Available at: [Accessed 18 June 2011]. Read More