The Italian Bella Figura – a challenge for politeness theories

• Published in: Journal of politeness research : language, behaviour, culture behaviour, culture, 2024-02, Vol.20 (1), p.39-58
• Main Author: Held, Gudrun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: face; facework; identity; impression management; politeness
• ISSN: 1612-5681; 1613-4877
• DOI: 10.1515/pr-2023-0081

This paper examines the Italian folk concept of in the framework of politeness-theories and the various binary conceptions it provides for explaining the nature of human communication. is a culture-specific understanding of self-projection in everyday discourse: It is both, a cognitive concept concerning the “beautiful” embodiment of self, and a performative concept concerning the active “figuring out” of a in order to avoid its contrary, the Thus, the -concept represents a pragmatic principle for acting in line with socially accepted norms setting out a reference frame for judging social endeavours according to a culture-inherent value system. Accordingly, affinities can be assumed between the -concept and the sociopragmatic core notions ‘face’ and ‘politeness’. A comparison of the -concept with the respective first- and second-order conceptions of the two, reflects a cultural version of ‘impression management’ conceiving an image of self which coincides with Goffman’s, but not at all with Brown and Levinson’s face-concept. This makes it difficult to identify in relation to politeness. Connections and disconnections are discussed alongside the paradigmatic binary scales and the positive/negative value-attributes. Finally, the findings are verified by comparing the use of the respective expressions as evaluation tools.