Dee Trying To Maintain My Positive Face

During this interaction, I was trying to maintain my positive face; to be appreciate and treated with respect. Dee used the face threatening speech act of giving an account. Accounts are “utterances to address problematic events” (Tracy and Robles, 2013 p. 95). More specifically, her accounts are excuses. An excuse admits something is bad, but denies full responsibility (Trachy and Robles, 2013). The examples of this are in emails 5, 9, and 13, Dee shifts the blame from herself to other things in order to address my concerns. Each account in the emails threatened my positive face because she gave an excuse rather than an respectful response that demonstrates her appreciation for me. After I told Dee that bees returned, she replied in email 5 by saying, “I will be over to try again.

The bees have become immune to all the chemical options available.” She acknowledges that the bees are a problem. Then removes the blame from she on lack of attentiveness to the problem, to place the blame on that the bees are immune to chemicals. But at this point, Dee’s attentiveness to the bee problem was an afterthought. She had only come over to our house once to spray the bees for about 15 seconds. Dee’s excuse enforced she superiority in our relationship, that is grounded in her age (mater identity) and our interactional identity as landlord and tenant. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs defines safety as a second level need. Dee knew from previous exchanges, that my roommates and I were constantly getting stung. Dee is suppose to keep our apartment safe. When she failed to do so, instead of Dee expressing empathy or giving an apology, she gave an excuse to why my home was unsafe. This threatened my positive face because it demonstrated that Dee does not respect or appreciate me enough to provide safety at my