1. Introduction

Greece and Turkey are situated at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, and their inhabitants have had a long history of cultural interaction even though their languages are neither genetically nor typologically related and the two also differ in terms of religion. This interaction, however, has been conflict-ridden and rather turbulent and as such it presents intriguing academic interest in intercultural communication (besides its political dimensions). This long history of coexistence must have left its traces, while the specific location may indicate that both Greeks and Turks must have received cultural influences from both East and West.

In recent years, there have been systematic attempts to overcome animosity and build mutual rapprochement and trust between the two peoples. Especially after the disastrous earthquakes which struck at about the same time Turkey (August 1999) and Greece (September 1999) and humanitarian aid was sent and reciprocated, the media, politicians, and civilians alike started talking about the “Greco-Turkish friendship” and the “earthquake diplomacy.” In this framework, TV programs appeared on both sides of the Aegean. These include the reality game show “Survivor,” in which a group of Greeks and a group of Turks played against each other, and a number of serials evolving around a culturally and religiously “unacceptable” love affair. There were two in Greece and one in Turkey which was broadcast in Greece, and, at least initially, they enjoyed tremendous success.¹ Given the scarcity of actual contact between Greeks and Turks,² these programs offer a kind of window through which one can “overhear” conversations about views, beliefs, and customs and “watch” how people enact their daily lives (see Papailias 2005; Lytra 2007: 50).

Following from the above, we expect to find both cultural similarities and differences. However, using essentializing definitions and focusing on either of these will result in a distorted picture of reality, not least because, as Theodosopoulos (2006: 6) argues, both similarities and differences are used to support conclusions “that bring the Turks and the Greeks sometimes closer and, at other times, much further apart.” This view is further elaborated by Petronoti and Papagaroufali (2006), who convincingly identify an ambivalent relationship between Greeks and Turks (see also Hirschon 2006). This becomes evident in the distinction frequently, drawn between “ordinary people,” who share similarities in the name of humanity, and the states that are the real “foes” and are attributed a number of negative characteristics. All these are significant in our case, since they indicate that Greeks and Turks already stand in a relationship, whether ambivalent, inimical or friendly, and this has to be taken into serious consideration when exploring issues of interaction between them. Evidently, this is not peculiar to Greek–Turkish contacts but applies equally to any interaction, whether intra-or intercultural, since interlocutors frequently have interactional histories, be they real, through actual personal experience, or constructed through stereotyping. Relationships extend over time. Social beings bring beliefs in to their interactions and have certain attitudes towards their interlocutors. All these should not be ignored in studies on intercultural communication. As Brown and Levinson (1979: 315, 316) aptly observe, if a dyad is drawn from groups which have a characteristic and definable relationship the dyad inherits that relationship and they further add that the kinds of relationships that hold between groups (e.g. alliance, rivalry) will probably hold between members of them.

This article will use the Turkish serial broadcast in both countries to argue that problematic interaction cannot be attributed solely to cultural differences because, although culture-specific norms exist, specific situations have their own particularities which may be treated by interlocutors as more significant than cultural ones. In fact, it has been argued (see, e.g., Hinnenkamp 1987; Scollon and Scollon 1995) that even the term “intercultural” may not be the most appropriate because it predisposes the researcher to focus on cultural characteristics of the groups at the expense of others, such as situational or historical ones. These latter are particularly important in our case, since the pre-existing images of each other that interlocutors have should be considered, as these seem to be more significant than the collision of static cultural values and beliefs. In other words, in the case of Greek–Turkish encounters, ethnicity and nationality seem to transcend cultural differences (cf. Higgins 2007: 6).

The paper focuses on identity construction within facework theory, bearing in mind the distinction drawn between “collectivism” and “individualism” (Hofstede 1980).

We will try to explore how the “Self” and the “Other” are fictionalized in the serial, that is, the kind of face social actors construct for each other, obviously drawing on pre-existing material. Fictionalization may represent a positively or negatively exaggerated reality, or even wishful thinking, but if viewers cannot relate to anything said or represented, they will most probably not be prepared to watch let alone enjoy the product.

1.1 A Note on the Data

The serial under consideration is a somewhat ironic comedy with dramatic elements, entitled Yabancı Damat (“foreign groom”) which receives the revealing and rather pompous translation in Greek (“the borders of love”). It evolves around a culturally and religiously “unacceptable” love affair, between an Orthodox Greek male, Nikos, and a Muslim Turkish female, Nazlı, and depicts the difficulties they face in their attempt to convince their families of their right to get married and move beyond historical prejudices. What is presented in the serial should obviously be seen as the image producers want to project. The characters depicted are fictitious and their interactions are not natur­ally occurring ones, which offer though the advantage of longitudinal study any chance recordings would not. However, since the producer’s attempt is at naturally occurring interactions, we are expected as viewers/hearers to make sense of the characters’ exchanges as if they were authentic (cf. Buck 1997: 89). In addition, since the language used by all speakers is Turkish (except for a limited number of Greek words thrown sporadically into the speech of Greek characters in order to increase their authenticity) we cannot consider linguistic features, such as contextualization cues (Gumperz 1982), to explain cases of problematic interaction. We are thus “forced” to look elsewhere for the source of communicative problems than in linguistic features which have been extensively investigated and typically held responsible for miscommunication problems. These characters cannot and do not represent all the Greek or Turkish population, but then, is it not equally true that the way language is used and the behavior of any two individuals will differ from those of any other pair? “Members of societies are agents of culture rather than merely bearers of a culture that has been handed down to them”; that is, individuals may comply with and ratify cultural norms but may also attempt to redefine and reconstruct situations (Ochs 1996: 416).

2. Intercultural Communication

Despite the fact that the term “intercultural communication” was coined to describe a field of enquiry whose major aim was to promote international understanding, what seems to have been promoted is extensive debate, as can be testified by the variety of issues involved and the difficulty of providing a single definition. As a consequence, many studies under its umbrella have been criticized for promoting stereotyping through overgeneralization or for ignoring other significant social variables, such as power issues involved (see, e.g., Singh et al. 1988; Sarangi 1994).

Part of the problem stems from the problematic nature of the notion of “culture” itself. Research has shown that there is no simple and easy definition and the great variety of definitions provided attests to the complexity of the notion (see, e.g., Paulston 2005; Scollon and Scollon 1995; Spencer-Oatey 2005). Classic and relatively dominant views see cultures as a set of shared beliefs and values which somehow direct people in their daily actions and interactions. By being enculturated into these value systems, individuals acquire their identity or sense of self. Such views are essentializing and tend to see culture as a coherent, unified whole which, though convenient, can hardly be the case. As is apparent, not all individuals of a given cultural group think, behave, and interact in exactly the same way. As O’Driscoll (1996: 30) succinctly observes, people are not just cultural clones. In addition, such conceptualizations tend to focus on what is different between peoples and in a sense promote stereotyping. Essentialist understandings of national cultures have been espoused and promoted by nationalism, reflecting governmental attempts to build national unity, and both Greece and Turkey are no exception to this.

In contrast, non-essentializing views conceptualize culture as a dynamic (rather than static) and emergent entity in specific contexts with specific participants who may or may not construe culture as salient in the specific interaction. Since it is individuals (rather than cultures or ethnic groups) who interact, we have to consider individual practices, bearing in mind that individuals have multifaceted identities, some aspects of which will be relevant in any specific communicative situation. Individuals may be or view themselves as members of a dominant or a minority group, may or may not enjoy power in the specific situation, may be young or old and male or female and may attempt to construe a number of situated identities, some of which may be more dominant than their cultural background. It thus seems clear that we should move beyond cultural factors and consider issues of power and context in a broad sense.

The issue of power within intercultural contexts has been explored, especially in cases of migrants, that is, unequal encounters, where the power clearly lies with the host. Extra demand on the existing resources as a result of contemporary global mobility has triggered in host countries possessive mentality over the in-group resources (work, housing, welfare benefits, etc.) and biased, prejudicial, and even racial attitudes to the newcomers. The repercussions of this in language have been explored extensively. It is claimed that “elite racism” (van Dijk 1993) finds voice through various forms of media to regulate and control the public opinion so that the power and indeed the hegemony over the migrants can be maintained, if not augmented. Although this framework is rich with findings about prejudicial language and stereotypes (interestingly the Turks are “Othered” and feature heavily among the targets of prejudicial language – see Mitten and Wodak 1993; Räthzel 1997; Doan 2000), we feel our case is different on three basic accounts, and therefore deserves a different analytical approach. The first difference is to do with the power distribution under investigation. In the research on ethnicism/racism the power distribution is asymmetrical and rather static; that is, the hosts have unquestionable power over the migrants. In comparison, in our data the two sides are on equal terms, as the power distribution is unclear and interactions are characterized by continuous attempts by both sides to claim power. This creates non-static and fluctuating lines of power, depending on who has taken a turn in speaking. The second difference appears to be in the choice of data under observation. In the ethnicism/racism literature most of the examples come from the media which is used by the establishment to form public opinion, such as newspaper editorials, school books, academic discourse, political and parliamentary speeches, while our case is based on interactive talk material, albeit a simulated one. The third difference follows from the second, and that is, the ethnicism/racism research analyzes prejudice in “referential strategies” (i.e. investigating how social actors of out-groups are referred to or named) and “predicational strategies” (i.e. what evaluative attributions are made about them) where the addressee of the prejudicial language is other than the target of prejudice (see Reisigl and Wodak 2001 for an extensive analysis). In our examples, however, the addressee and the target of prejudice are usually the same individual(s).

Bearing in mind the interactional character of our material and in order to investigate how interactants construct/maintain their social identities in a tug-of-war of power, we use the concept of “face” and the variables of individualism/collectivism, both of which have been significant in recent studies in the social sciences.

3. Theoretical Background

3.1 The Concept of “Face”

Extensive research on face and facework was triggered in the 1950s by Goffman’s (1955/1972) seminal essay “On face-work.” Researchers, including Brown and Levinson (1978/1987), acknowledge their debt to him as he does to Chinese sources, since the concept of face is seen as Chinese in origin and then borrowed into European languages (see, e.g., Mao 1994; Ervin-Tripp et al. 1995). Brown and Levinson (1987: 61) define “face” as “the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself,” which consists of two related aspects or desires; namely the desire to be liked and approved of by at least some others (positive face) and the desire to be free from impositions (negative face). As is well known, their elegant and impressive theory has attracted criticism on a number of grounds, a substantial body of which relates to the equation of identity concerns with the positive and negative aspects of face. In contrast, research emanating predominantly from Japanese and Chinese (see, e.g., Matsumoto 1988; Mao 1994) maintains that the concept of face is broader, not just “a public self-image” with a positive and a negative aspect to it but one which involves both social and moral and also group aspects. This has paved the ground for a number of scholars (see, e.g., Watts et al. 1992; Eelen 2001; Bargiela-Chiappini 2003; Watts 2003) to argue that Brown and Levinson’s conceptualization of face is a narrow, Western individualistic construct, focusing as it does on individuals’ psychological wants and desires. As a result, a return to the Goffmanian concept of face has been espoused by some scholars, since, as it has been argued, it provides a better basis for the social/interpersonal aspects of face. In more recent literature, face is seen as an emergent property of situated relationships (Arundale 2006: 201, 202; Terkourafi 2008a: 52).

3.2 Individualism and Collectivism in Identity Construction

Hofstede’s (1980) four dimensions³ in general and individualism/collectivism in particular have been the focus of many studies in a range of disciplines where Hofstede’s original theory has been expanded (Gudykunst et al. 1988; Fiske 1990; Triandis 1995; Kaıtçıbaı 1996) in attempts to find its applicability to different cultures and show its relationship to face sensitivities (Koutsantoni 2007).

As we have claimed elsewhere (Bayraktarolu and Sifianou 2001), in Turkey and Greece collectivism is stronger than individualism. Triandis and Vassiliou, for instance, found as early as 1972 that the Greeks were group-oriented, as they paid attention to what others said about an individual before offering him or her employment, thus displaying the importance of networking, in comparison to North Americans who evaluated prospective employees on personal merit. Verkuyten (2005) similarly finds that Greek adolescents, in comparison to Dutch youngsters, evaluate their group identity more strongly than their personal identity. There are indications, however, that Greek culture, especially in urban areas, is moving towards individualism (Georgas 1989; Terkourafi 2009). The findings on the Turkish side are not much different.⁴ Fiek and Kaıtçıbaı (1998: 84) claim that Turkish culture is traditionally based on collectivism rather than individualism, but on the other hand, “an educated urban Turk will have more in common with an urban German than with a rural Turk in some ways, but this is obscured if all Turks are classified as being similar and different from all Germans,” thus underlining the differences that exist even in the same culture, depending on educational factors and geographical positioning and even personal traits.⁵

3.3 Collectivist and Historical Aspects of Facework

A collectivist orientation will undoubtedly be reflected in the importance attached to group face. As Ho (1994: 271) points out “face may be lost not only from one’s own actions but also from the actions of other people.” These “other people” may constitute the various groups one belongs to, be it one’s family and closely related others, work group, townspeople, or nationality group. Thus in addition to individual face there is what has been called “group face” or “corporate face” (see, e.g., Goffman 1972: 344; Hirschon 2001: 23; Spencer-Oatey 2005: 106–7), which may even take priority over individual face, especially when in competition with other groups.

In the relevant literature the idea of group face has been explored, especially in relation to Asian cultures (but see also Nwoye 1989, 1992 for the Igbo of Nigeria, and de Kadt 1998 for the Zulu); however, the emphasis on its emergent nature and the current situation has backgrounded its enduring attributes. This is eloquently voiced by Werkhofer (1992: 176) when he argues that face is not only connected to the narrow “here and now” but “to processes that may go on over longer stretches of time.” This understanding of face, which is particularly relevant in our case, appears to be related to Ho’s (1994: 274) definition, that “face may be defined in terms of the more enduring publicly perceived attributes” and is “largely consistent over time and across situations.” This distinction between pan-situational and situation-specific face is captured in Spencer-Oatey’s (2005: 102) categories of “respectability face” and “identity face.” Drawing on Ho, she defines the former as referring to “the prestige, honor or ‘good name’ that a person or social group holds and claims within a (broader) community” and the latter as a “highly vulnerable,” “situation-specific face sensitivity” (see also Terkourafi 2008b: 319).

The longitudinal aspects of face can also be traced in Goffman’s work (1972: 320), who says that in order for someone to maintain face in the current situation, s/he must have abstained from certain acts in the past that would be difficult to face up to later (cf. O’Driscoll 1996: 6). The Greek expression and the Turkish expression onunla konuacak / ona bakacak yüzüm yok, both roughly meaning “I don’t have the face to see/speak to him,” clearly illustrate Goffman’s claim and the fact that one enters an interaction already possessing some kind of face.⁶ Producers of such utterances express their embarrassment at not having behaved according to expected norms in the past so that contact or interaction is currently difficult. In other words, face is a significant though vulnerable socio-historical construct whose maintenance is important in interaction. This understanding does not necessarily contradict the discursive construction of face and its relational character but highlights the argument that what is co-constructed on the spot draws from a “repository of prior experience and encounters” (Kecskes 2004: 21). In order to act at any moment, interlocutors employ the socio-historical knowledge they possess (Goodwin and Duranti 1992: 5) and evaluate which aspect of their multifaceted face is relevant to the current situation.

Interestingly, in our case, face includes not only “enduring publicly perceived attributes” (Ho 1994: 274) but also enduring publicly “imagined” attributes, that is, stereotypes (often negative) that have been formed over the years. Interlocutors have and know each other to have face (Brown and Levinson 1987: 61), claimed and/or attributed to them over time with “known” and “visible” attributes (cf. Goffman 1972: 320). Thus when a Greek and a Turk approach each other, even for the first time, they already possess a corporate face and stand in some kind of relationship, where the “known” attributes tend to outweigh the “visible” ones, at least initially. The objections most vehemently expressed in our serial by both the Turkish and the Greek families to meeting one another for the first time are fueled by such fossilized images of the other.

3.4 Face Considerations for the Greeks and the Turks

Hirschon (2001: 23) argues that in Greece “collective identity prevails over that of the individual” and the same is true of Turkey (see Zeyrek 2001).⁷ One may be in or out of face as a consequence of (mis)conduct by some other member of any of the groups s/he belongs to. Although in some situations either the individual or the group face may prevail, the two are frequently interrelated. For instance, an achievement may bestow credit on an individual’s face and misdemeanor or misconduct may threaten it but at the same time these may have positive or negative repercussions on the relevant group (e.g. one’s family, academic unit, or even nation). In intercultural contacts in particular, it may be that group face predominates.⁸

Group face becomes salient in the value attached to family membership. Hirschon (2001: 33) comments on the “patriarchal nature of the Turkish family and the importance in rural areas of corporate kinship groups.” Similarly, Zeyrek (2001: 44) attests to the value placed on the closely knit familial structure in Turkey. However, there seems to be a gradual change taking place, especially in large cities. In urban Turkey, the extended family is claimed to be collapsing (Vergin 1985; Kıray 1998; D’Addato et al. 2007) and the nuclear family structure is becoming the norm, although relatedness among family members is still very strong (Kaıtçıbaı 2005). Georgas (1989), comparing urban and rural communities in Greece, also finds a transition from extended to nuclear family values. Kataki (1998) attests to a similar transition of the Greek family from collectivist to individualist values, noting however, the stability and flexibility of family bonds.⁹

There seems to be an assumption in the literature that the kind of face claimed by individuals is also attributed to them. However, as Arundale (2009) lucidly illustrates, face is not “the image the actor has constructed of his or her own person” but rather the image the social actor believes is attributed or even would like to be attributed to him/her by others (see also Terkourafi 2008b). In Greek–Turkish encounters, what is claimed is most frequently very different from what is attributed to each other, not because of distinct opposing cultural values, which are sometimes used to this end, but because “historical knowledge” entails the attribution of negative features to the other. What is claimed is most frequently an image of Self and group delineated in terms of positive social features whereas what is attributed to the other is the opposite. Thus, at least initially, what is claimed is rarely ratified by the other, hardly a basis for interaction, let alone cooperative interaction.

Millas (2001) explores this issue and argues that textbooks have nothing positive to say about the other side. Despite some differences, the case is the same in both countries.¹⁰ There have been some recent positive changes but such negative representations of the other are still prevalent (see, e.g., Schissler and Soysal 2005 for an extended discussion of this). These are generalized constructs which obviously have little in common with reality; yet they are significant even if only as an underlying influence, at least in initial encounters. Such essentializing negative understandings have been constructed over a long period and are reinforced by institutions, such as education and the media.

In considering the concept of face in a Greek–Turkish framework, one immediately notices its salience and two of its aspects become highly relevant. It is clear that it is not just a “self-image” claimed by individuals or an image simply co-constructed by the dyad in specific activities. Instead it seems to be (a) a richer construct developed in societies where collective identity is as strong as or even stronger than individual desires to be independent and/or approved of and (b) a pre-existing (though not static) construct involving a number of approved social attributes. These two aspects do not determine but definitely influence the current process of co-constructing face by sustaining or altering existing images. Face in these societies is closely associated with “honor” and the “good name”¹¹ not only of an individual but also of the groups one belongs to, much like Ho’s (1994) pan-situational face (see, e.g., Hirschon 2001; Zeyrek 2001; Terkourafi 2009).

We will henceforth restrict ourselves to specific media-constructed family interactions in an attempt to explore the dimensions involved in the construction of social self and group identities by Greeks and Turks and show how these are involved in intercultural interactions.

4. Discussion

4.1 Setting the Scene

The serial under consideration depicts a family from the Greek metropolis and another family from a provincial city in the south of Turkey. The Greek family belongs to an elite minority whose members are shipowners and travel in their own jet. They originate from the cosmopolitan community of Istanbul (see Örs 2006). In comparison, the Turkish family owns a modest baklava business, where all the adult male members of the family work. What we have here, then, is not simply an example of interaction between two different nationalities; the actors are also different in terms of status, lifestyles, and values. Interestingly, these latter differences are in fact the base for some constrained remarks directed to individual face but they do not have the contentious results that the ones aimed at group face do.

Both families appear to have a clear hierarchical structure but obedience appears to be a stronger prerequisite in the Turkish one. The Turkish family is an extended one with the couple (Kahraman and Feride) and their three children, including their married daughter (Nazire), her husband (Ruen), as well as the paternal grandfather (Memik), not to mention their live-in house-help, all occupying the same premises. Women in this household are relegated to domestic duties, confirming traditional gender roles (see Zeyrek 2001: 58). The only family member who has received higher education is their younger and single daughter (Nazlı). In contrast, the Greek family is made up of the couple (Stavros and Eleni), their only son (Nikos), the father’s sister (Katina), and the paternal grandmother (Efthalia), who do not live together but are all actively involved in the family business (except Eleni) and family affairs.

Looking at it from a wider perspective, the serial depicts three generations in both families. The young lovers, Nikos and Nazlı, are not particularly concerned with the socio-historical enmities nor do they pay much attention to the traditional values of their respective societies. As such, they exemplify the individualistic attitude. The eldest family members, that is, Nikos’ grandmother and Nazlı’s grandfather, are presented as the inflexible standard-bearers of the collective entities that they belong to, rich in fossilized notions about one another’s corporate identities and poor in tolerance for any threat to their own “good name.” As for the parents from either side, they are caught in the middle of the younger and older generations and are unable to figure out which side they should please – a feature which adds comic elements into the story. Thus, the transition from collectivism to individualism noted in the literature is clearly depicted here, as is a relatively high level of power distance (Hofstede 1980) which entitles those in power (parents, grandparents) to tell those with less power how they should behave. Despite the abundance of stereotypical, prejudicial language targeting both groups in the series, the same variability in the portrayal of generations with their differing outlook on life is what makes the series not only tolerable but also enjoyable on both sides of the Aegean.

4.2 Stereotypes and Socializing

The series is rich with historical references and prejudicial speech. At one instance Nikos’ father laments, “They deported us from Istanbul. How many times have we told you” to which Nikos retorts “Forget all these now! It’s forty years ago” only to receive his mother’s response “We won’t [forget] even in another forty [years]” (8:04.05). Past memories also haunt Kahraman’s father who reminds Kahraman that “they [the Greeks] had deafened and then martyred” his grandfather (19:46.55). When Kahraman protests, “Come on, now, father. You don’t know what you are talking about,” he scolds his son for not standing up to the Greeks, “I am not as chicken-hearted as you are, you jackass!”

Members of the older generation keep on “educating” the younger ones in their group with their prejudicial knowledge about the other side:

When challenged about the validity of their preconceptions by the younger members, they either blow their top or disown the questioning group member:

The last example is also interesting in that it brings up the important issue of blood symbolism. Reference to the metaphor of shared blood is notable as it unifies a nation and links people to their ancestors and, consequently, separates them from others. The grandfather here uses this metaphor to question the legitimacy of the son-in-law’s in-group membership, meaning, as he is too lenient on the Greeks, he cannot be a thoroughbred Turk.¹²

Due to this input, the present face-to-face interactions are heavily influenced by the prejudicial knowledge of the Other. As Meeuwis (1994: 402) argues cogently, historically rooted stereotypes and ethnic prejudices influence the context of interactions significantly. As a result, suspicion and distrust of the Other is paramount. When, for instance, Eleni hears that her son Nikos has given blood to the Turkish grandfather, she asks him in horror: “Have they extracted your blood by force” (16:50.20). Similarly, when Nazlı returns home after being detained in a Greek police station for entering the country without travel documents, her grandfather retorts, “Tell me girl, have they tortured you in prison” (4:53.08).

The Other is conceptualized as collectively “bad” or even “evil.” This kind of socializing then is conducive to an adversarial context of interaction where direct or indirect attacks are leveled at each other’s face, face-attacks evident especially in the opening stages of the serial. Our suggestion then is that a priori conceptions of Turks and Greeks respectively influence their interactions more strongly than any cultural factors (cf. Apitzsch and Dittmar’s 1987 claims).

Being subjected to such preconceived values, the younger ones recount stories they have heard from their elders of enmities and dislike. In Episode 6, when Nazlı says to Nikos, “My grandfather doesn’t like the Greeks” he has similar news for her, “Well, my grandmother doesn’t like the Turks” (6:48.32). Although they are keen on overcoming these social barriers, problems are difficult to escape from when animosity is continuously injected into them by those they look up to as figures of worldly wisdom. Indeed, after Nikos announces that his fiancée is from Turkey, his mother cries out in anger “I’ll go crazy. A Turk” and later on adds “A Turk! I didn’t expect I would ever hear that. No way, you can’t get married to her” (8:03.49). This reaction is not surprising because, as Petronoti and Papagaroufali (2006: 559) argue, such marriage “prohibitions are especially rigid when it comes to Muslims: inbreeding with ‘infidels’ tends to be seen as a ‘monstrous’ act” (see also Lytra 2007: 48). Similar are the reactions of the Turkish family on the prospect of their daughter getting married to a Greek.

4.3 Aggressive Behavior and Claims of Power

All these clearly indicate that interactions between these two national groups will be rather difficult. This mostly negative, pre-existing emotional relationship reinforces an adversarial climate (cf. Watts 2003: 96; Kienpointner 2008: 246), since the “socio-historical knowledge” which interlocutors possess is employed “to act within the environment of the moment” (Goodwin and Duranti 1992: 5). This knowledge includes primarily acts of violence and animosity enhanced every now and then by media reports of conflicts and problems. Even though their interactions are made up of culturally recognizable themes, their attempts at even phatic communion frequently backfire, contradicting all norms of cordiality and hospitality, qualities highly valued in both societies. This is even blatantly expressed by Stavros’ “Shame on you, we are visitors” (10:07.45). For instance, both extracts (1 and 3) below are made up mostly of aggressive turns. “Verbal aggressiveness” is “the tendency to attack the self-concepts of individuals instead of, or in addition to, their positions on topics of communication” (Infante 1987: 164, quoted in Gudykunst 1998: 198). Verbal aggression results from, among other things, repressed hostility and feelings of disdain and can lead to hurt feelings, anger, irritation and embarrassment (Gudykunst 1998: 199). Aggression typically breeds aggression and tends to escalate, as is the case in the following extract. Here the interlocutors start with attacks on the situation-specific face and proceed with attacks on the pan-situational face.

In the above extract, repressed hostility is evident, and while Feride and Katina attempt to break the ice with phatic exchanges and save the faces of everybody present, the others appear uncooperative. A polite remark about the house by Katina is responded to in line 10 by Kahraman with “It was nicer before this boulder arrived.” By “boulder” he refers to the statue (a waist-up copy of the famous statue of Aphrodite of Milos) the Greek family had sent as a present in advance of their visit. The choice of this word here requires explanation. In an earlier scene Kahraman returns home from work to find at the entrance hall a Greek statue surrounded by his bashful family members who are obviously thunderstruck with the impact this naked female body makes on their provincial minds where sexuality in public is a taboo. They recover from the shock by dressing the statue with a shawl, and expressing their surprise in the words, “Fancy sending this as a present! How strange these Greeks are!” (10:05.56). Kahraman in the extract above makes an allusion to their earlier shock by calling the gift “a boulder” but then (after being prompted by his daughter, line 11) mitigates his remark by trivializing it, repeated for emphasis, “A little joke.” Even though one may attribute the conflict here to class differences in gift choosing and giving, both the size of the statue and the reactions are rather meant to provoke mirth to the viewers.

Another noticeably hostile move, contravening all rules of appropriate behavior, is when Stavros asks Kahraman whether baklava is enough to make a living on (line 12). As the question is condescending and expects no more than bare existence as an answer, Stavros’ immediately preceding utterance about the house being nice also changes its meaning from a compliment to an unflattering remark, because if one really liked the house, one would have assumed that the owner’s business was thriving. Kahraman responds that it provides adequately for the family and then makes a side-remark to his wife, “Money is his God.”¹³ Stavros threatens Kahraman’s individual face but Kahraman in return observes the politeness strategy of “Don’t do the FTA” (Brown and Levinson 1987: 72), and rather than making an equally contemptuous remark, he chooses to share his negative thoughts about the guest with his wife. A similar occasion appears much later on, when the families have a boat tour of Istanbul and Kahraman gets sea-sick. Instead of taking advantage of this weakness and confronting Kahraman for his inadequacy, Stavros prefers murmuring to his wife Eleni, “What kind of a man is this; he’s frightened of a plane and he’s frightened of a boat. He is actually a coward” (15:17.59), to which his wife responds, still whispering, “He wasn’t that though when he threatened you at the hotel.” Here again, the personal defects are not spelled out for gain in superiority, because the competition is carried out not at the personal level but in the name of their respective nations.

This becomes evident in the same scene quoted above (lines 14 to 22), where Eleni and Kahraman embark on an aggressive interaction over the ownership of baklava. This is just one example of what Harrison (2002, quoted in Theodosopoulos 2006: 6) calls “relationships of conflictual resemblance,” that is, cases in which interlocutors compete for the ownership of cultural features or symbolisms which overlap. Thus, the origin/ownership of baklava is one among many of these contested food/sweet recipes. Other examples include “Turkish” or “Greek” coffee, the doner kebab and the drink raki (lines 21–2). Similarly contested are claims over the symbolic ownership and the cultural capital of a city, in fact, the City, reflected in its different names: Istanbul (in Turkish) and Constantinople (in Greek) (see Örs 2006 for further discussion on this). Such is the contest in the next example where Stavros welcomes Kahraman on the eve of the engagement party to the hotel where both families stay in Istanbul for the big occasion. It is worth mentioning that Istanbul is not the place of abode for either side:

What Kahraman is saying here, hidden behind a polite façade, is that they are in Kahraman’s territory and Stavros should not act as if he owned the place. Such conflictual interactions constitute clear attempts to claim group power and superiority.

What then emerges clearly from the above is that both sides compete for power at every opportunity. A further example is when Kahraman attempts to instruct Stavros to use his fingers to eat his meatballs (10:11.06), thus constructing a knowledgeable self, an image that Stavros forcibly refuses to accept by saying “Don’t interfere. I’ll eat it any way I like.” Even though on the surface, this could be interpreted as an example of conflicting norms due to cultural or class differences, a closer look reveals the lack of concern for each other’s face, in their attempt to construct a powerful self-image. In such instances an analysis of isolated surface discursive phenomena only is clearly inadequate (cf. Meeuwis 1994: 404). Both sides exhibit interest in impressing each other with higher qualities than they possess. For instance, when Kahraman has a suit made for him before he and his wife pay a visit to Stavros and Eleni in Greece, Kahraman’s tailor says, “I will make you such a suit that will dazzle everyone in Greece” (14:33.44). Making an impression on the in-laws is not enough, the whole country should be spell-bound and the community, including the tailor (not just Kahraman), is responsible for it. After all, the contest here is not between individuals, it is between the communities represented by these individuals.

The antagonism displayed in these examples which is frequent throughout the series is only to be expected in Greek–Turkish interactions. In fact, interactions would have sounded rather unnatural, had interlocutors worked in perfect harmony. This antagonism may not necessarily emerge so bluntly in actual contacts (unlike our fictitious ones) but the potential is there to a greater extent than in other intercultural interactions, where such pre-conversational factors are construed as less important. Aggressive interactions evolve around or underlie issues of group superiority. In the next example we see this clash happening head-on, despite a call to reconciliation by a diplomat.

We see once again in this extract the interlocutors starting with personal attacks and proceeding with attacks on the groups that addressees belong to. It is noteworthy, however, that the damage aimed at the situation-specific face (i.e. “old hag” and “old he-goat”) are incorporated into complimentary remarks (i.e. “talking sense”) and in this format are not as damaging as they might have otherwise been. What seems to be significant instead is the respective attacks on the pan-situational face, where common stereotypical, essentializing comments (i.e. the Turks being untrustworthy and the Greeks backstabbing) surface and draw the encounter to a close at which point the personal favors have to be withdrawn. Reminiscent of the children’s closing-up strategy of asking for their dolls or balls back at the end of a non-reconciliatory fight, Memik, despite being in the presence of diplomatic representatives from both sides, announces that he is not giving the hand of his granddaughter to the Greek suitor.

4.4 Facework in Greek–Turkish Interactions

In the context under consideration, facework, that is, “the actions taken by a person to make whatever he is doing consistent with face” (Goffman 1972: 324) acquires a distinctive ring to it. At least in initial encounters, these actions may not involve the simultaneous use of both defensive (saving one’s face) and protective (saving the other’s face) practices but rather concentrate on defensive practices only, employing spiteful and even insulting remarks. Thus, avoidance processes (i.e. acts through which interlocutors attempt to prevent face threats) are blatantly ignored and corrective processes (i.e. acts through which the distorted ritual equilibrium is restored) are rarely employed by the offender – and – then only after s/he is being prompted by somebody else (e.g. Extract 1, line 9) – or are produced by some other interlocutor. In-group members are sometimes involved in prompting the repair of, or repairing themselves, embarrassing instances which may reflect negatively on their group face. Incidentally, this kind of behavior could be seen as one aspect of group face: that is, interlocutors belonging to the same group co-construct each other’s face and their group face by extension. The “balance principle” does not hold, probably because interlocutors do not “have adequate motives for caring for each other’s face” (Brown and Levinson 1987: 236). On the contrary, it seems that power aspirations constitute strong motives for attacking and threatening the other’s face. Breaches of face respect are produced intentionally and attempts at reparation by the self or some other in-group member only affect the wording, since the content typically remains the same. Kahraman’s move from “What do you say, woman?” to “What are you talking about, my lady?” in Extract 1 (lines 14 and 16) illuminates this clearly. Such interactions are interesting in that the other’s cooperation, truthfulness and respectability cannot be assumed.

5. Concluding Remarks

Even though not all interactions involve aggression, there are many instances which do throughout this serial where interlocutors claim power at the expense of appropriate polite behavior. Evidently, the views expressed and the way language is used are not suited for overgeneralizations and we will not attempt any. Our main argument has been that in any intercultural contact, factors other than culture may predominate or may be constructed as salient by interlocutors. This is especially true in the case of Greek–Turkish encounters given their long-standing rather hostile relationship. Cultural similarities and differences no doubt exist but each is given priority in specific circumstances the interlocutors find themselves in. In our case, cultural differences do not appear to present interlocutors with the kinds of obstacles that ethnic differences, and thus claims to power, do. These constitute what Hinnenkamp (1991: 92) calls “pretexts,” that is, “categorical knowledge attached to particular categories of people.” If people are prepared to interact, they avoid “hot” historico-political issues and bring up similarities, whereas if they are not, they bring up differences, in most cases sterotypical, and historico-political enmities and traumas. The serial would not have enjoyed the success it had, had interactions followed the former path of action. It was the exaggeration invested in the latter that contributed to its entertaining the viewers.

Within a facework theory, it has been argued that although face is co-constructed by interlocutors and is emergent in the current interaction one should not ignore its pre-existing, though obviously not static, nature. What is co-constructed is based on interlocutors’ relational history whether existing or imagined. In our data, group-face is projected, especially in Turkey, and its enduring aspects are constantly involved in interactions. When these people meet for the first time, they already possess a relational history and in most cases it is this which becomes salient even at the expense of constructing a favorable kind of individual face in the current exchange. In other words, interlocutors appear impolite and aggressive, defying any norms of hospitality and appropriate behavior in their effort to present themselves as more powerful, and thus allowed to behave in this way. The other’s face is disposable and interlocutors appear to be concerned less with the protection of their own individual face and more with that of the group, be that their family or their nation. The interactional problems encountered do not stem from different cultural norms but from allowing negative attributes included in their relational history to surface. These negative attributes typically involve an inferior other and it is this image that each tries to sustain. Thus what seems to be needed in such contexts is a “charity principle” (cf. Singh et al.) (i.e. taking the other party to have face with positive attributes) which can pave the ground for the “balance principle” to operate, not in individual terms but in terms of societal ideology. We have argued in this chapter that in intercultural communication in general ethnic prejudices and stereotypes (both positive and negative) should be considered, since they contribute to the ongoing interaction, sometimes in subtle and inconspicuous ways, and can easily go unnoticed if one considers only surface discursive phenomena.

NOTES

1 The serial was the unquestionable “hit” among the summer 2005 TV programs (Papailias 2005).

2 In fact, in Greece at least, people routinely “think and talk a lot” about the Turks (rather than with them) as an “all-inclusive, generalized category” (Theodosopoulos 2006: 2; Lytra 2007: 47).

3 The other three dimensions are: “power distance,” “uncertainty avoidance,” and “masculinity-femininity” (Hofstede 1980: 178). It should be noted that these are to be understood as broad approximations rather than essentializing constructs.

4 This seems to be happening in a number of different locations in Europe. For the transition from collectivism to individualism in Poland, for instance, see Jakubowska (2008).

5 Yetim (2003) similarly shows that university life helps especially the male students to become autonomous and independent with increased self-esteem.

6 See Ervin-Tripp et al. (1995) for related expressions in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean languages, where one also finds more than one lexical item rendering “face,” as is also the case in Greek ( “face”). For an extended list of Turkish expressions rendering “face,” see Ruhi and Iık-Güler (2007).

7 Although the terms “face” and “identity” are not synonymous, they are closely related. For interesting explorations on this see Arundale (2006) and Spencer-Oatey (2007).

8 In this respect, it is interesting to note that in the reality game show “Survivor,” both the Greek and the Turkish contestants repeatedly claimed that they wanted to win the money prize not for themselves but for their respective countries’ good name/honor.

9 For instance, children may decide to live on their own but they expect and receive not only emotional and financial support from their families, but even their cooking and laundry provided by willing mothers.

10 For instance, the Turks are presented in Greek textbooks as possessing nothing but negative characteristics, such as being bellicose and arrogant, aggressive and expansionist, devious and dishonest. By contrast, the Greeks are depicted as possessing nothing but positive attributes, such as being fair, heroic, and peaceful and displaying a high culture compatible with Western humanism. In comparison, it is claimed that in Turkish textbooks the Greeks are presented as traitors and people who would stab you in the back while the Turks are depicted as the nation of “tolerance” (Demirözü 2002).

11 This link is in fact made by Brown and Levinson (1987: 13) when they say that “notions of face naturally link up to some of the most fundamental cultural ideas about the nature of the social persona, honor and virtue, shame and redemption.”

12 In relation to Greece and Turkey, the mixing of the blood in earlier centuries, identified by some, brings the two peoples closer (see Theodosopoulos 2006: 9). This symbolism of mixing blood is so pervasive that offers of blood were both accepted and refused during the 1999 earthquakes and instances of blood donation by the other have been included in the serial. In this case, it is the grandfather who is in need of blood and the Greek groom is the only one who has got a compatible blood type. When the grandfather finds out about this transfusion, he tries to extract this blood from his body using leeches!

13 This exchange cannot be explained in terms of nationalistic hostility but only perhaps indirectly. Rather what we have here is incompatibility between materialistic urbanism and modest/fatalistic provincialism.

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