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his teacher, shown as [1a. ], and a second type in the friend's question to the same individual,
as in [1b. ].

[І] a. Excuse me, Mr Buckingham, but can I talk to you for a minute?
b. Hey, Bucky, got a minute?
It follows from this type of approach that there will be different kinds of politeness
associated (and marked linguistically) with the assumption of relative social distance or
closeness. In most English-speaking contexts, the participants in an interaction often have to
determine, as they speak, the relative social distance between them, and hence their 'face
wants'.
Face wants
In this discussion, let's assume that the participants involved in interactions are not
living in a context which has created rigidly fixed social relationships. Within their everyday
social interac-tions, people generally behave as if their expectations concerning their public
self-image, or their face wants, will be respected. If a speaker says something that represents a
threat to another indi-vidual's expectations regarding self-image, it is described as a face
threatening act. Alternatively, given the possibility that some action might be interpreted as a
threat to another's face, the speaker can say something to lessen the possible threat. This is
called a face saving act.
Imagine a late night scene, where a young neighbor is playing his music very loud and
an older couple are trying to sleep. One of them, in [2], proposes a face threatening act and the
other sug-gests a face saving act.

[2] Him: I'm going to tell him to stop that awful noise right now!
Her: Perhaps you could just ask him if he is going to stop soon because it's getting a bit
late and people need to get to sleep.
Because it is generally expected that each person will attempt to respect the face wants of
others, there are many different ways of performing face saving acts.

Negative and positive face
When we attempt to save another's face, we can pay attention to their negative face
wants or their positive face wants. A person's negative face is the need to be independent, to
have freedom of action, and not to be imposed on by others. The word 'negative' here doesn't
mean 'bad', it's just the opposite pole from 'positive'. A person's positive face is the need to be
accepted, even liked, by others, to be treated as a member of the same group, and to know
that his or her wants are shared by others. In simple terms, neg-ative face is the need to be
independent and positive face is the need to be connected.
So, a face saving act which is oriented to the person's negative face will tend to show
deference, emphasize the importance of the other's time or concerns, and even include an
apology for the imposition or interruption. This is also called negative politeness. A face
saving act which is concerned with the person's positive face will tend to show solidarity,
emphasize that both speakers want the same thing, and that they have a common goal. This is
also called positive politeness.

Self and other: say nothing.
One way to see the relevance of the relationship between these politeness concepts and
language use is to take a single speech event and map out the different interpretations