Hedging and Face-Management in Rejecting Second Dates

1.    Abstract

This investigation explored the relationship between gender, hedging and face-management. Although a substantial amount of early work surrounding the differences between so -called ‘women’s talk’, contrasting men’s language as the ‘norm’, more recently this theory is being opposed, instead looking at the value of hedging and face-management in interactions. The television show ‘First Dates’ was used to collect data, as the show contains interactions surrounding rejection of a second date, providing a context rich in both features central to the investigation. Six female rejecting male, and six male rejecting female interactions were transcribed, and the frequency of hedging and face-management features were counted. The results showed no significant difference between the frequency of hedges used by females and males (74:75) per 1,000 words, however showed that females used a higher frequency of face-managing techniques than men (87:63 phrases per 100). The results showed that women tend to overcompensate for performing a potential face-challenge, providing reassurance to their male counterpart that seeks to justify the rejection in a way that is accepted by the male.

2.    Introduction

This essay aims to show how men and women use hedging devices to decline a second date with a potential partner. The research will provide insight into the relationship between hedging and managing face, as the situational context of navigating rejection means threatening face is almost certain. For this reason, this essay will also aim to uncover how participants negotiate Face Threatening Acts (FTA) with face-management techniques such as softening, negotiating and understanding/reassuring. The essay will first outline past claims and themes within the literature (3), then explain the methodological approach the investigation took (4), followed by a presentation of the results (5) and discussion of the data (6) and conclusion (7).

3.    Literature Review

3.1.        What is a Hedge?

Although it has been labelled a variety of different terms,  as shown by Beeching (2016: pg. 3, Table 1.1), “the term hedge refers to a class of devices that supposedly soften utterances by signalling imprecision and noncommitment” (Dixon and Foster, 1997: pg. 90). Hedges are agreed upon as a way to potentially ‘de-legitimise’ a statement, as Coates (2015: pg. 88) too suggests they “express the speaker’s certainty or uncertainty about the proposition under discussion”. Thus, hedging can be agreed upon as a device used to lessen the commitment to a statement, therefore lessening the impact of a statement. The hedging devices explored in this investigation include minimisers such as ‘just, a little, kind of’, uncertainty quantifiers ‘I think, I feel, maybe ‘and modal auxiliaries ‘would, could, may’.

3.2.        Early Research of Hedging

It was suggested by Lakoff (1975) that hedging is one of the many features of ‘Women’s Talk’ which reflects women’s unassertiveness and subordination in language, reflecting their social status. Lakoff’s (1975) Language and a Women’s Placelabels hedging, rising intonation, tag questions, super-polite forms and empty adjectives as frequently used features of female language. Holmes (1995: pg. 74, 75) approaches hedging as an umbrella term, incorporating “fall-rise intonation, tag questions and modal verbs, [and] lexical items such as perhaps and conceivably, and pragmatic particles such as sort of  and I think”   thus encompassing Lakoff’s suggested features of Women’s Language. Although Lakoff’s findings are now disputed as ‘Powerless Language’ rather than ‘Women’s Language’ (O’Barr and Atkins, 1980), it can be suggested that these features will be more frequent in interactions when women are rejecting the proposal of a second date, rather than men. Coates (2015) investigation collected data from women who often discussed highly sensitive topics, finding women used hedges as a way to navigate the sensitive topics without “taking a hard line”, and explains “the use of hedges prevents such talk from being too face threatening” (Coates, 2015: pg. 129). Coates’ investigations have found that men used a lower frequency of hedges, and explain this may be because men tended to avoid sensitive topics, and thus the need to mitigate the force of their utterances.

3.3.        Debates in Hedging

It has been argued that “research evidence suggests that women and men develop differentiated communicative competence” (Coates, 2015: pg. 86), which therefore affects their understanding of the ‘right’ language to use in a situation. This suggests there may be differences between how men and women react during face-threatening interactions, as male participants may generally have a great capacity for withstanding what women may find more threatening to face. Holmes (1995: pg. 86) investigation studying politeness of women and men in New Zealand found that “women tend to use pragmatic particles to express positive politeness more than men do”. In accordance with constructing relationships with other speakers, positive politeness can be used to express ‘in-ness’ and acceptance. Furthermore Tannen (1990: pg. 92) lends an explanation as to why this may be, suggesting that women’s language is cooperative and aims to build affiliation with others, whereas men’s in competitive and prone to conflict. 

3.4.        What is Politeness Theory?

It can be questioned why an individual may seek to lessen their commitment to a statement through hedging. Throughout history mankind has grown to learn the relation between our types of interaction with others, and maintaining positive relationships. Brown and Levinson’s (1987) Politeness Theory provides insight into the perception of a person’s “performed” public face image (Goffman, 1990: pg. 32) in interactions through the use of their “positive face” and “negative face”. When summarising Brown and Levinson’s work, Watts (2003: pg.86) states “positive face is defined as the individual’s desire…to be appreciated and approved of in social interaction, whereas negative face is the desire for freedom of action and freedom from imposition”. Therefore, politeness strategies are recognised as acts which play the role of either improving the addressee’s positive face through support, and/or avoids imposing upon the addressee’s negative face through restricting their freedoms (Watts, 2003: pg. 86). For this reason, face-managing techniques we’re necessary to be explored within this investigation, as techniques such as softening which aid in improving face through complimnets will surely affect a participants comfort within the interaction, perhaps then affecting the frequency of hedging devices used.

3.5.        Face-Management

Brown and Levinson’s ‘Politeness Theory’ (1987) suggests that face needs in everyday language and interactions affects the directness or indirectness of our statements, and so we may use pragmatic markers such as hedging, to lessen the ‘threat’ when a person’s face needs will be compromised. It is crucial to understand however, that “certain kinds of acts intrinsically threaten face, namely those acts that by their nature run contrary to the face wants of the addressee and/or of the speaker” (Brown and Levinson, 1987: pg. 313). As this investigation explores interactions of rejection based on feelings of romance and attraction, the context is fundamentally threatening to face. Sirota and Juanchich (2015: pg. 233) propose that in the circumstance of potentially upsetting contexts of interaction, speakers use face-managing intentions to protect either the hearer from the information, or the public face of the hearer. Secondly, Sirota and Juanchich (2015: pg. 233) propose that when using face-managing techniques, speakers adopt a different probability from what they intend (that is more protective towards face. Thus, it can be expected that the speaker may express a weakened probability about not wanting a second date, indicating uncertainty rather than their definite decision. Furthermore, Sirota and Juanchich(2015: pg. 232)identify two core postulates accounting for “variability in everyday communication”. First, speakers who are carrying out a potential ‘challenge’ by announcing certain information wish to tell the hearer this information, whilst also managing the face of the hearer as well as their own face. Second, in order to manage face whilst also express the challenging information, speakers adopt speech techniques that alters the information from what they initially had in mind. 

4.     Methodology

The television show ‘First Dates’ was chosen for transcription, as the nature of the show revolves around acceptance or rejection, thus provided a context whereby FTA and hedging devices were extremely likely to be used. The episodes were selected for transcription starting from the most recently released episode until the desired amount of data was collected. It was decided to study the most recent episodes rather than older episodes so that the analysis gave insight into the current use of FTA and hedging, and allowed for accurate results. The investigation followed an Interactional Sociolinguistics (IS) approach in order to determine the association between the linguistic devices present and the course of interaction happening between the speakers. According to Gumperz  (1982: pg. 208), a major task of interactional sociolinguistics is investigating how signs function to signal tasks in discourse- determining how interpretations are agreed upon and modify interactions by the background, foreground, or subordinate “information carrying element”. Thus, this approach allows an understanding of both participants roles in managing face through the signals of attempting to save face through hedging devices. “The ways in which relationships are negotiated and maintained through talk is… a key component of interactional sociolinguistics” (Vine, Holmes, Mara et al., 2008: pg. 345) One person may be inflicting a threat to another’s face, but how do they maintain a positive relationship with that person, minimizing the threat the best that they can.

4.1.        Participants

The participants were selected as a judgement sample, ensuring a representative sample through selecting participants according to criteria such as age, gender, and sexuality (Wardhaugh and Fuller, 2015: pg. 159). The sample consisted of six female to male rejections and six  male to female rejections, The ages of the participants included daters in their early, mid and late 20’s, early mid and late 30’s, 40’s and mid to late 60’s, ensuring a representative sample. It is important to distinguish that the binary gender categories of ‘male’ and ‘female’ were used throughout this investigation, in order to comprehend contrast between the more distant gender identities on the spectrum that is gender. The range in the ages of participants allowed for participants that may have been raised to with traditional gender roles and values of ‘male’ and ‘female’, as well as younger generations which may have grown up surrounded by the ever-growing opposition to stereotyping genders.

4.2.        Context

The IS approach requires understanding of context in order to understand the role of so-called ‘information carrying element’s’ within navigating the interaction. As the nature of the show ‘First Dates’ is that the participants are on a blind date with a person who they have been ‘matched’ with, the participants had not previously met. For this reason, it is crucial to recognise the fact that hedging may be used as there is a lack of familiarity. However, it can be suggested that as the participants have spent on to two hours getting acquainted before the transcribed conversation, this should not influence the presence of hedges. The dates all take place in the ‘First Dates Restaurant’, which is set up with spherical cameras mounted on the walls to observe as unobtrusively as possible. After the participants have finished their meal and decided they have had enough time to get to know each other, they pay for the meal and are escorted to the studio. The participants enter the studio one at a time, and so it can be assumed that after they exit the restaurant they are separated, although this is not shown. Upon being seated in the studio, the participants are asked by camera crew “would you like to see each other again?”. The transcribed interactions begins as soon as the participants have been prompted by this question. 

4.3.        Data Collection

The data was collected from Channel 4’s ‘On-Demand’ streaming service online, and so as the data is taken from a publicly available platform, avoiding the need of participant ethics information forms. The interactions were chosen at random, from the most recent episodes of ‘First Dates’ in order to reflect the current use of hedging devices. Transcription conventions are provided in Appendix 1.

From carrying out simple frequency tests, it appears that the use of hedging devices and face-management strategies did not vary significantly between the two genders. Minimisers were used more frequently by women (16:13) as were softening techniques (10:14), uncertainty quantifiers were not significantly different between men and women (13:14). Modal auxiliaries however were significantly more frequent within males language (11:5),  as was negotiating (15:8) within female interaction and reassuring/understanding (15:5). Face-challenges were matched between the sexes (10:10). Holmes suggests frequency counts are not enough to validate hedging, context and illocutionary force/ intention must also be investigated, and so contextual factor which may influence these features are presented in the analysis.

3.     Discussion

3.1.        Hedges

Interactions require speakers to “rationally assess the possible face-threatening nature of the move s/he is about to make and then decide whether to avoid it entirely, or at least to soften (or minimise) it by choosing an appropriate linguistic strategy (or strategies)” (Watts, 2003: pg. 86)

3.2.        Minimisers,-just, a little, kind of, quite, a bit, sort of, only because, personally

Minimisers were more frequently used by female participants rejecting males, and were found to be more concentrated surrounding the utterance that was most likely to challenge face in the interaction. This is likely to be due to the fact minimisers function to weaken the force and of a statement, as suggested as a feature of women’s language (Lakoff, 1975).

Example a)- Conversation 2, ‘just’, ‘a little’, and ‘too’ in minimising rejection

In the above example, ‘just’, ‘a little’ and ‘too’ in line 13 are used to minimise the imposition upon the male participants negative face, with the female participant using negative politeness restraining from committing to her reasons for rejecting the male participants offer of a second date.  Beeching’s (2016: pg. 77) provides analysis of why the minimiser ‘just’ is frequent in high-challenge-potential contexts, suggesting that “just  is clearly related to the canonical sense of ‘merely’… but it applied at the speech act level, rather than at the word level”. Thus, ‘just’ is used to minimise the importance of the information which it introduces. The minimisers all reduce the importance of the speakers statement, managing face through signalling to the hearer that the presented criticism is not significant. The speaker avoids the challenging allegation that the male datee did not take the date seriously, and instead using minimising hedging devices to allow the male to either challenge this claim, or understand and reassure that the speakers redressive action has not compromised their face.

Example b)- Conversation 12, male use of ‘kind of’ to minimise criticism

The position of minimisers within the interactions did not significantly vary between men rejecting women, and women rejecting men. In both context’s, minimisers were utilised most commonly within the face-challenging statements, whereby the speaker was either rejecting the hearer, or explaining why they have chosen to reject the hearer. However, men used minimisers’ less frequently than women, and when they did it tended to be more commonly in justifying their reasons for the rejection, such as in example b). Minimisers appeared to be utilised in clusters as in lines 17 and 18, most likely to ensure a weakened negative FTA, and in example b)suggests the male participant is unsure of what he wants in a female, making the FTA appear less personal about the female participant.

Example c)- Conversation 7, Male rejecting female through minimiser ‘personally’

Example d)- Conversation 4, female rejecting male through minimiser ‘for me’

The results show that women used minimiser ‘for me’, that reflected their feelings to reject their male counterpart significantly more, at 8:1. Example d) exemplifies this use of personal blame in rejection, and through the minimiser ‘for me’ reinforces the insignificance of the speakers personal opinion. This appears to minimise the force of a statement through stress that it is simply the opinion of the speaker, and instead places blame upon the feelings of the rejecter, compromises their negative face, rather than the traits of the rejected. This supports Brown and Levinson’s (1987: pg.312) claim that protecting their own and their speech partners face is a fundamental part of politeness in interaction, making use of negative politeness with the sacrifice of some vulnerability to the speakers face, in order to maintain the listeners. As men scarcely used these ‘personal-blame minimisers’ it can be suggested this relates to what Tannen (1990) describes as men’s competitive nature of language, perhaps avoiding this self-deprecating minimiser in order to maintain their ego in interaction.

3.3.        Uncertainty Quantifiers, I think, maybe, I feel/I felt

It was debated whether ‘I feel/ I felt’ should be categorised as an uncertainty quantifier or a minimiser, as evidently the phrase encompasses both functions in interaction. However, it was labelled an uncertainty quantifier from analysing its role in the interaction, appearing to be able to be used interchangeably with uncertainty quantifier ‘I think’.

Example e)- Conversation6, female use of emotive uncertainty quantifier ‘I feel’

Women used uncertainty quantifiers ‘I feel/I felt’ considerably more than men, and just as with the use of the minimiser ‘for me’, this uncertainty quantifier again places personal blame upon the female speaker as the reason for the males rejection.  Tannen (1990) suggests that women use language for cooperation and building relationships, and so women may more frequently use hedging forms that derived from their personal feelings, as a technique of face-maintenance, compensating for their negative FTA through signifying closeness. It can also be suggested that ‘I feel/I felt’ are used as a way to prevent their counterpart retaliating with a potential FTA, managing attacks upon their face through suggesting they are ‘opening up’ a part of them that cannot be controlled- their feelings.

Example f)- Conversation 7

‘I think’ are used by both males and females to express uncertainty within statements, such as in example f). The male participant suggests that his rejecting a second date is not certain (line 6), as “politeness theory posits that speakers use uncertainty quantifiers to pursue informative intentions and also to sugar-coat threatening news to manage the hearers’ or their own faces” (Sirota and Juanchich, 2015: pg. 232).

3.4.        Modal auxiliaries, would, should, may, can

Example g)- Conversation 3

Similarly to uncertainty quantifiers, modal auxiliaries are often used to weaken the force of a statement, and Holmes (1995: pg.79) suggests epistemic modal devices are not simply used by those who are “powerless or socially unconfident, but in the interest of accuracy”. Therefore, in order to manage the face of the rejected participant, the rejecter appears to use modal auxiliaries with a weakened accuracy which resultantly lessens the threat upon the rejected participant. Modal auxiliaries were not frequently found within the interactions, and ‘could was used in one instance

The modal auxiliary ‘would’ was more frequently used by participants who were seeking a second date, however was also present when rejecters wanted to propose friendship alternatively to a potential romantic relationship, thus compromising.

3.5.        Face-Management

3.6.        Softening

Men used more softening techniques such as personal compliments to reduce the prominence of the challenge, whereas women used negotiating techniques more frequently, negotiating the reason behind the rejection to align with the man’s need’s. 

Example h)- Conversation12, male use of compliments as a softening technique

Tannen (1990: pg. 111) states that “for most men, talk is primarily a means to preserve independence and negotiate and maintain status in a hierarchical social order”. This may aid in explaining why men used softening techniques such as compliments to counteract the challenge, using positive politeness telling the hearer desirable things, thus protecting their own face through being approved of as ‘a nice guy’.

Example i)- Conversation 4

In example i), the female speaker risks appearing insincere through her over-compensating use of complements to manage her rejecting the male participant. As the female has decided to reject a second date with the male participant due to ‘lack of a spark’, over-complementing the male participant can create contrast between her actions and her words, and thus can compromise her credibility and potentially harm the face of the male participant.

3.7.        Negotiating

Negotiating techniques are classified as utterances that are influenced by the needs of the challenged participant, and were used more frequently by female participants when males didn’t not respond by maintain face after a challenge.

Example j)- Conversation 6, negotiating the reasons for rejection

Rather than reinforcing the fact that the female participant felt no romantic chemistry between herself and the male participant in example j), she negotiates her reasons for rejecting a second date to suit his needs, as he appears to threaten her face through disputing her reason for rejection as shallow, accusing her of wanting a “bad boy”. According to Goffman (1990: pg. 29)there may be cynical participants in interaction, who strive to maintain their outer appearance to the world. Goffman (1990: pg. 29)states “a cynical individual may delude his audience for what he considers to be their own good, or for the good of the community”people may be “cynical performers because their audience does not allow them to be sincere”. Therefore, the female participant negotiates the males need to blame his rejection upon not being a “bad boy”, rather than her lack of attraction towards him. Lakoff (1973: pg. 48) suggests that women’s language serves as to hide her personal identity “by denying her the means of expressing herself strongly, on the one hand, and encouraging expressions that suggest triviality in subject-matter and uncertainty about it”. However, although the female in example c) does restrain from expressing herself strongly, it cannot be assumed this is due to her acquiring features of ‘women’s language’, and seems more likely a face-management technique.

Example k)- Conversation 10, negotiating rejection by manipulation

In example k), the male participant negotiates maintaining his face, not wanting to be impeaded upon as the ‘bad guy’, through his reasons for rejection, and instead explains his rejection as looking after the interests of the female participant (lines 4, 6, 8). Whereas example j) negotiated their reasons for rejecting in order to suit the face needs of the male participant, it appears that the male participant in example d) does not want to take the role of the rejector, threatening the face of the female participant, and instead leads his counterpart to reach the same decision through asking the rhetorical questions ‘am I the one, and are you the one?”. The male participant uses negative politeness “I would be wasting your time”, using the modal auxiliary “would” to increase the certainty that he would likely impede upon the female datee’s future, if they went on a second date. 

 

3.8.        Understanding/reassuring

In both contexts where the male participants were rejecting females and vice versa, understanding and reassuring techniques followed a potential FTA, alleviating the intensity of the threat and maintaining both speaker and hearers face. 

Example l)0 Conversation 4

According to Brown and Levinson’s (1987: pg. 312) Politeness Theory, “the most salient aspect of a person’s personality in interaction is what that personality requires of other participants- in particular, it includes the desire to be ratified, understood, approved of, liked, or admired”. In this context, the ‘rejecter’ requires the ‘rejected’s’ response to their obligated honesty and pressure for a response to be accepted without escalating the conversations tension, as the face threatening act is imminent. Hence, it can be suggested that the severity of the threatening act depends upon the response of the rejected participant.         

3.9.        Face-Challenging

The term face-challenging has been used to cover any utterance in the interaction which has the potential to harm the face of the other participant, including when a participant is rejecting the other, regardless of how the rejected participant reacts. 

Example m)- Conversation 11, male dater challenges through accusation

Example n)- Conversation 6, male dater challenges through disputing female

Face-challenging was present in every interaction simply due to the nature of rejecting a second date with a person, however in some instances participant’s do not initially show understanding or reassurance following their counterpart compromising their face, which leads to further face-challenging. Brown and Levinson (1987: pg. 311) suggest it is in all participant’s best interest to maintain their own and each other’s face, and thus when participants feel their face has been threatened, challenging face is retaliated as the participant attempts to protect their vulnerable face. These cases of  high challenge potential are shown in example m) and n), whereby a speaker reacts negatively to a face-challenge and responds in a retaliating challenge to the other participant.

Example o)- Conversation 1

As evident in example o), these instances of high challenge potential seem to be resolved once one of the participants feels their own face is no longer threatened, after which understanding and reassurance techniques are used to signify this. This is explained by Brown and Levinson (1987: pg. 316), as“in the context of the mutual vulnerability of face, any rational agent will seek to avoid these face-threatening acts, or will employ certain strategies to minimize the threat”. 

4.     Conclusion

This investigation has explored how men and women use hedging devices to navigate face-threatening contexts, revealing the differences in the functions of these devices from men and women. The investigation has concluded that there are no major differences between the frequency of hedging and face-management devices used by females versus males, however has distinguished that female participants used negotiating techniques to maintain their male counter parts face, whereas male participants favoured compliments to maintain their female counterparts face, and feed their ego. The functions of hedging and face management techniques also found that men appeared to use these techniques to express uncertainty and maintain their ‘performed self’s’ (Goffman 1990) image as kind and not a threat to women’s self-esteem. Conversely, women tended to use negotiating as well as uncertainty quantifiers to alleviate threats to their male counterparts ego, and was discovered that often male participants that had been rejected required the reason the women gave to be negotiated, to one that they approved of. This supports findings of previous studies (Tannen, 1990; Coates, 2015), that men and women may use language for different purposes; competition and cooperation. There are limitations to the investigation that may have affected the features used in the interactions, as the interactions were recorded for broadcast on television, and so it can be assumed that the participants were hyper-sensitive in ensuring they maintain their positive face in front of such an audience. If the study were to be repeated on a larger scale, the relationship between social classes and power on frequency of hedging and face-maintenance would be explored, as previous studies had opposed gender as a causation (O’Barr and Atkins, 1980). Also, same-sex dates would also be analysed in order to build an understanding of whether all-female dates use the same hedging and face-managing devices as female and male rejections, and vice versa for all-male dates.