Negative face means that they do not want to be forced and the actions of their own are not influenced or interfered by others. Positive face means that they want to gain praise or acceptance from others. Brown and Levinson think that actually much verbal behavior is threatening one’s face. And to pay attention to politeness is to reduce that threaten. They presented that each person should consider both positive face and negative face, because it is related to one’s rights and communication principles.

Stella Ting-Toomey posited that “face was a projected image of one’s self in a relational situation.” (1996:215) And later “the claimed sense of favorable social self-worth and the estimated other-worth in an interpersonal situation” (1998:129). She explicated that face-work was employed to solve a conflict, avoid a conflict and protect one’s image. It was a great contribution to linking face and conflict in building intercultural communication competence.