Facework display of a political leader: Linguo-rhetoric approach (the case study of Julia Gillard’s speech on misogyny)

: This article focuses on the cognitive rhetoric features of the politician’s facework that incorporate face threatening acts, communicative strategies, and discursive functions in a political speech. The data were taken from the speech on misogyny delivered in 2012 by the 27th Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Throughout the article we disclose the interaction of the politician’s face, politeness, and power in the institutional discourse. Julia Gillard does her facework actively engaged into the misogyny argument which provides a persuasive ground to confront the opponent’s face through reinforced employment of both positive and negative face threatening acts. The findings suggest that doing facework through rhetorical practices Gillard signals her identity in three faces: a political leader, a female politician and her individual social self-image of a woman and daughter. Gillard’s face claims are closely bound with her sense of sociality rights and obligations. This entails her relational and collective self-construal prevail over her individual face. The symbolic power obliges Gillard to protect her collective self-credibility and makes the ground for undermining the self-worth of the opponent in a rather straightforward manner. The politeness Gillard exercises is mainly prescribed by the institutional goal and status which directly impact the use of the linguistic means employed by the politician.


Introduction
People surrounding us and their rhetorical practices "are shaping our capacity for mental agency" and "enable new social realities to emerge through a bundle of mental modules that are then used to infer, theorize, or simulate the mental states of others, all the better to manipulate them" (Oakley, 2020).One of the spheres where this influence is best seen is political communication.Extending the scope of definition and meaning of the term political discourse, here it is identified by rhetoric practices of professional politicians and all other participants in the political process.Following Teun A. van Dijk (1997) we extend understanding of the political discourse to a more complex picture of all its relevant participants, whether or not these are actively involved in political discourse, or merely as recipients in one-way modes of communication (Dijk, 1997), putting both, the hearer and the speaker, into active position of assessors of linguistic behaviour in terms of its (im)politeness.Political messages are integrated in public mental space by media, social networks, and political speeches.Political leaders make speeches which serve more than just as a means of delivering messages but encourage cooperative communication and enhance self-image, or discourage, threaten the opponent's self-worth, and cause conflict.To achieve the intended effects, politicians perform facework making use of a variety of linguistic devices, particularly face threatening acts (FTAs).In this study we aim at defining the interaction of the politician's face, politeness, and power in the institutional discourse.Following this goal, we analyze Julia Gillard's facework and the ways she utilises linguistic devices to construct her faces in the argument on misogyny and exerts her authority.

Theoretical framework
As stated by Brown and Levinson (1987), the speakers employ FTAs to effectively carry out a premeditated impact on the opponent thriving for further effects such as changing their worldview, decisions, preferences, or choices without particular effort to keep to rules of politeness.Hierarchical and political organization of modern society causes new exploitation of the groundworks by Goffman (1955), Grice (1975), Brown and Levinson (1978) and Leech (1983) which introduce the concept of face, principle of cooperation, politeness theory and theory of maxims.Specific focus is given on "integrating pragmalinguistic aspects of (im)politeness alongside sociopragmatic dimensions, speci fi c linguistic forms and presuppose stable meanings while taking into account the context and including both speaker and hearer perspectives" (Baider, Cislaru, & Claudel, 2020;Culpeper and Haugh, 2014;Arundale, 2009;Spencer-Oatey, 2008, 2019).
Grice explains his theory of cooperative communication following an assumption that the language we use is aimed at cooperative behaviour which is "characterised by a high level of coordination as talk exchanges do not normally consist of a succession of disconnected remarks, and would not be rational if they did.They are characteristically, to some degree at least, cooperative efforts; and each participant recognizes in them, to some extent, a common purpose or set of purposes, or at least a mutually accepted direction" (Grice, 1975).
The dogmas of cooperative communication and the theory of speech acts (Austin, 1962;Searle, 1969) offer the scaffold within which direct and indirect speech acts of promising, threatening, requesting and others can be understood and interpreted by both the speaker and the hearer on the condition of mutually shared factual background information.Not less important in this process is the capacity of the hearer to give correct interpretations and judgements to the information and the ability of the speaker to deliver the information in a cooperative manner.In this case politeness comes out as flagrant motivation for employing conventionally polite forms of mitigation and indirectness in utterances.The illocutionary force of the speech acts considered face threatening by the speaker can be lessened by employing a range of mitigating devices which include hedges, indirect speech, hints, insinuations, irony, or euphemisms.
Here we want to shift attention to the cognitive nature of such rhetorical practices which can be inherently persuasive to terminate cooperative communication, or dissuasive aiming at the face damage and destruction of an opponent.According to Bianchi (2013) "linguistic utterances are a valuable source of information, because they carry a presumption of optimal relevance, i.e., of a satisfactory balance between cognitive effects and processing effort" (Bianchi, 2013).We do cognition by doing rhetoric as rhetoric moves thoughts, which then move forward bodies after a period of critical comprehension and further conceptualization.The correlation between cognitive and rhetorical practices is not instrumental but constitutive which is "characterized by interconnected and interdependent nature of body, language, and environment" (Burke, 1925;Oakley, 2020).This very combination embodied in communication is used to negotiate identity and status, exercise and maintain social power.The phenomenon of power is inextricably connected to the investigation of facework as power is a dynamic force which is itself a form of behaviour, "something people do to each other" in order to negotiate relationships following the increasing tendency in the modern society to "socially position ourselves relative to others with whom we compete" (Oakley, 2020;Eelen, 2001).Doing facework through rhetorical practices we signal significant information about different aspects of our identity-our individual self-concept in multiple of faces.
According to Slavova (2020) in political discourse politicians use rhetorical practices based on linguistic and communicative means to implement their basic strategies of positive self-representation and discreditation of opponents.She argues that the discursive self-representation of politicians is a frequently applied technique in the political discourse which is carried out mainly in two ways: to represent themselves in a favourable light by resorting to self-promotion and positioning the positive features or discrediting political opponents (Slavova, 2020).Politicians learn, develop and master a range of diverse strategies which enable them to construct their communication in the most preferable way (Watts, 2003;Locher and Watts, 2005).In facework terms, the goal of a politician is to save their own positive face as well as their collective face (institution's face), offset the damage caused by the opponent's FTA and enhance their own and institution's positive face to the maximum possible extent.This paper explores how Gillard attempts to achieve this goal.In this study we aim at distinguishing cognitive rhetoric patterns of Julia Gillard's facework following the ways of utilising linguistic devices to enhance her credibility and undermine the self-worth of the opponent.
Face is a complex phenomenon which in Goffman's theory is defined "as the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular interaction.Face is an image of self-delineated in terms of approved social attributes-albeit an image that others may share" (Goffman, 1955).Drawing on this framework the concept of face particularly resonates with the rhetorical dimension of Ethos in terms of similar importance of maintaining of face (self-presentation) and the speaker's credibility.Recent understanding of the concept argues that face can be perceived as a more global and long-term construal akin to identity while both are social (interactional) and cognitive in nature (Spencer-Oatley, 2019;Locher, 2011).In this context we argue that face theory is linked to identity but identity is a broader term.A person can negotiate their different identities doing facework in a multitude of faces which they find appropriate to employ in a particular interaction.People make linguistic decisions which have social meaning in their self-construction.Face and identity are both aspects of self-presentation, which is the process of managing one's impressions and reputation in front of others.When the speaker experiences face-threatening situation they encounter the feeling of lost credibility and personal devaluation.In communication the speaker may vary their face relying on the public self-positioning they want to claim for themselves.People form relatively firm cognitive representations of their self, construct and develop their emerged identities through social interaction.Face as self-image is attached to their social self-worth and the social selfworth of others.Spencer-Oatley (2007) directly correlates face with the notion of self-image which in cognitive terms relates to individual, relational and collective construal of self.Spencer-Oatley maintains that people's face claims and face sensitivities are deeply based not only on their personally held values but are closely bound with their sense of sociality rights and obligations.Ting-Toomey (2005) and Spencer-Oatley (2019) identify two fundamental face needs: the desire to be independent and not imposed on, which is labeled "negative face", and the desire to be appreciated and valued positively, which is referred "positive face".According to the needs other types of face are also distinguished: autonomy face related to the need for independence, status face arises from the need of power, competence face answers the need for skills to be appreciated, fellowship face derives from the need of inclusion, moral face is employed in need for dignity and honor to be respected, reliability face expresses the need to be acknowledged trustworthy (Spencer-Oatley, 2019).The term facework covers the concept of different actions which the speaker takes in the conversation revealing the appropriate face best serving to counteract the situational face threatening events ("incidents" whose effective symbolic implications threaten face (Goffman, 1955)).People draw from social values and expectations to do facework as they co-construct their multitude of faces to perform or avoid facethreatening acts or perform face-enhancing acts, considering not only their interlocutor's face but also their own as they are located in specific situations (Sifianou and Tzanne, 2021).According to Ting-Toomey (2005) face relates closely to "identity respect and other-identity consideration" indicating that participants in a cooperative conversation are supposed to follow the politeness maxims and do facework working together to maintain each other's face respectfully, without invading their privacy and communicative space.
In political discourse politicians' linguistic behaviour can often be not as cooperative as outlined by the politeness theory.Political leaders tend to be persuasive and aim to concede only in cases beneficial for their face.House (2010) argues that in some cases institutionally sanctioned asymmetrical power relationships between interactants prior to and ensuing the interactional encounter on hand may prove to be immune to challenge and supposedly impolite face threat.In such instances consideration of politeness and impoliteness may indeed turn out to be of secondary importance (House, 2010).In political communication FTAs and mitigation are used not for weakening of the force of the utterance but for polite reenforcing the speech acts which produce unwelcome effects to the credibility of the opponent.Politeness is used as a manipulative tool and impoliteness is 'rewarded' as an indispensable attribute of political leadership (Harris, 2003).In fact, politeness is understood as minimizing or avoiding FTAs which is achieved through various facework strategies, that is, through selecting from among a number of alternatives the most appropriate ones in the specific context (Sifianou and Tzanne, 2021).
Since a speaker and addressee cooperate to maintain each other's face, speech acts that threaten the speaker's face also potentially threaten the addressee's face (Culpeper, 2011;Culpeper and Terkourafi, 2017;O'Driscoll, 2017).Face threatening acts may cause the feelings of embarrassment, shame and/or guilt, whereas acts enhancing face qualities may lead to boosted self-esteem and pride (Sifianou and Tzanne, 2021).Face threatening acts and a loss of face itself bring cooperative conversation to failure but they still enhance the speaker's own face as a result of threatening that of the opponent.As mentioned by Chang and Haugh (2011), in some contexts, even criticisms and insults can be face enhancing, and some acts may be evaluated as both face threatening and face supportive at the same time.
Face threatening acts can aim at the opponent's positive and negative face and are outlined in the following types: 1) FTA to show that a speaker negatively evaluates some aspects of an opponent's positive face, in terms of complaints, reprimands, accusations, insults and contradictions, as well as disagreements, challenges, disapproval, criticism, contempt or ridicule.2) FTA to show that a speaker is indifferent to an opponent's positive face involving the use of status related identifications and offensive address terms, expressions of inappropriate or violent emotions, mentioning sensitive topics or taboo topics for the opponent.
Negative FTAs can be classified: 1) FTA when the speaker requires a verbal response or an action from the person addressed using requests, suggestions, advice, reminding, threats, warnings.2) FTA that put some pressure on the opponent possibly through offers and promises.
3) FTA classified into manifestations of strong positive or negative emotions towards the opponent (compliments, admiration or envy).Brown and Levinson (1987) classify five strategies for dealing with FTAs according to which aspect of positive/negative face is being threatened: bald on record, off record (when ambiguity is achieved by the implicated meaning), positive politeness (which involves such strategies as compliments or jokes), negative politeness, and the strategy not to do any FTA.Facing the necessity of constructing facework employing FTA a speaker may choose to perform FTAs on record or off record.On record strategy requires consideration and may be performed with redressive strategy considering the addressee's face needs or addressing the opponent baldly on-record purposely damaging their face.

Data and method
The research benefits from and utilises the socio pragmatics ground ideas on speech acts, cooperative communication and politeness theory introduced by Goffman (1955), Austin (1962), Grice (1975), Brown and Levinson (1978) and Leech (1983).We consider the pragmatic framework of (im)politeness strategies by Culpeper (1996) and keep to a postmodern interdisciplinary approach of Watts (2008) (socio-cognitive aspect) and Spencer-Oatey (2007), Locher (2008Locher ( , 2012) (discursive approach) who point out that there is a close connection between identity construction, selfrepresentation and (im)politeness.
In relation to political discourse, we focus on investigating positive and negative face threatening acts and (im)politeness strategies that politicians employ to construct their facework and exercise power.The study adopts an analytical research design of the political discourse of Australian Prime Minister (PM) sampled from her famous speech where the misogyny issues were the main agenda.The chosen study data consist of the public speech, which was intended for a non-intimate audience and delivered by the speaker who is highly self-conscious of the caused effects.Positive and negative face threatening acts and responsive mitigating strategies were elicited and elaborated analytically from the given speaker's parliamentary performance.We focus on cognitive rhetoric features of facework which are disclosed in the relativity of the multidimensional concept of face to the rhetoric dimension of Ethos.In this perspective Ethos is displayed in the choice of utilising appropriate linguistic devices to enhance the speaker's credibility.The speakers' Ethos is driven by the cognitive nature of calculating how to effectively manage facework.A descriptive qualitative research technique is used in the analysis of data with the aim to exemplify how consideration of politeness and impoliteness may differ in the political discourse.We introduce elements of the pragmatic analysis to focus on the speech acts chosen by a politician while constructing her facework.We also utilize elements of discourse semantic analysis which helps to observe the communicative strategies of positive self-positioning and negative otherpositioning.Going out the boundaries of syntax, semantics and pragmatics, we trace the partisan use of pronouns which help make clear political polarization built in the speech under analysis.For the purposes of this study the data were subjected to a manual qualitative analysis to identify the facework management strategies used by Gillard and define their means of realization.Although the given analysis does not specifically focus on the impact of the sociolinguistic markers on the language performance, we follow how the political leader exercises her power and constructs facework considering her gender, status, and social position.Starting from the point that the proposed paper is case-based we do not thrive to making broad generalizations, yet we argue that the study exemplifies the dynamics of managing facework by the politician.The findings allow to understand the level of (im)politeness involved into Gillard's facework and how she exerts power prescribed by her social position.

Results and discussion
This paper shows how Julia Gillard balanced politeness of the discourse with the use FTA on the issue of misogyny and established her Ethos through an effectively utilised facework.Julia Gillard was doing facework protecting her face in three dimensions: political leader, female politician and her social self-image as a woman and a daughter.By challenging the face of the leader of opposition, Julia Gillard, as the Prime Minister, attempts to undermine the credibility not only of the direct opponent (Tony Abbott) but competence of the Opposition as a whole.The emotional pathetic register in the speech is built moving from the genuine feeling of offence (her individual self as a woman) to the courage in pronouncing her status as a female political leader with a strong authority.
A choice of words and rhetorical devices serve as medium for her persuasive communication.The linguistic means became a prime factor in composing a successful political speech which is cited as one of the most powerful on the theme of misogyny.The positive face threat for Gillard is estimated to be relatively very high what makes her keep to a protective orientation of her speech directed at saving her own positive face yet aiming at threatening positive and negative face of her opponent.
By incorporating FTA with minimum mitigating strategies, Prime Minister established her powerful position.Gillard managed to persuasively deliver the issues of the conflict without lessening the force of her resentment.Gillard's facework is not thus restricted to maintaining her face.On the contrary, keeping to the norms of institutional politeness, she aims at intentionally attacking positive and negative face of the leader of opposition threatening his political and social self-worth.
Along with O'Driscoll (2017) and Haugh (2013) we argue the relationship between facework and politeness in the perspective of politeness as only a possible but not obligatory aspect of facework in political communication.Politeness in terms of linguistics can be defined as the intention to respect the feelings, values, and actions of other participants in conversations based on a common intent for cooperation.Based on this desire for cooperation, there are different rules for appropriate conversational behaviour which are manifested in the societal norms.Nevertheless, it is possible to exercise power by either following or disobeying to these conventional rules of society.Different politeness strategies can be applied aiming to accomplish one's goals which are typically driven by sociolinguistic markers, including such as status or positions of power.In the speech under analysis politeness is achieved through minimizing FTAs, communicative tactics of distancing, ridiculing the opponent but still can be considered of secondary importance.Maintaining the speaker's personal and collective self is of the main importance.
The following findings are of particular significance to the study.In her verbal performance, Julia Gillard is not giving up her standpoint to dwell on misogyny but constructs her facework to defend her positive face, namely, to establish her (1) social self-image, (2) a female politician face, and (3) protect her face as PM.Due to the existing institutional discourse conventions, she keeps to politeness norms and uses redressive strategies mitigating FTAs directed at saving the opponent's face without minimizing the general force of criticism.Mitigation is a strategy used to lessen the risks of clearly offending the opponent, "reduce the anticipated negative effect of a speech act" (Holmes, 1992).
The speech under analysis exemplifies a perfect balance of straightforward criticism, irony, covert offence, and institutionally sanctioned politeness norms.Of the total 45 FTAs employed by Gillard to the leader of opposition, 31 cases aimed at his positive face and involved the redressive bald on record strategy (showing prominent dominance in 69% of all cases).Bald on record strategy is represented in 18% of the total.We do not trace positive politeness or off record strategies in the speech which could possibly highlight friendliness from the side of the speaker or cause ambiguity and implicatures from the side of the hearer.
Gillard's positive face, her want for her self-image to be approved of by the others, is associated with such attributes as competence, achievements, status and power.These values make her face sensitive and entail the facework she constructs.Gillard's facework construction and language behaviour is the result of a double bind: feeling of discriminatory attitude against her individual social self and a political leader face.In other words, her both: individual and collective faces are threatened.
The bald on record strategy is activated when the threat to her status face as PM is estimated to be more salient than those related to other aspects of face, as it is seen in the examples (1): (1) "I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man.";"if he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he doesn't need a motion in the House of Representatives; he needs a mirror.That's what he needs.";"Has he taken any responsibility for the conduct of members of his political party and members of his frontbench who apparently when the most vile things were being said about my family, raised no voice of objection?";"I was offended too by the sexism, by the misogyny, of the Leader of the Opposition catcalling across this table at me as I sit here as Prime Minister" (The Sydney Morning Herald, 2012).Such bald on record strategies come with the advantage of getting credit for honesty and outspokenness, as well as "enlisting public pressure against the addressee or in support of [one]self" (Brown and Levinson, 1987), which Gillard presumably wants to gain with her speech: "And what I won't stand for, what I will never stand for, is the Leader of the Opposition coming into this place and peddling a double standard."(The Sydney Morning Herald, 2012).
Gillard's facework is not thus restricted to maintaining or enhancing her positive face, on the contrary, she aims at intentionally attacking the opponent's face.The working data proves the redressive bald on record strategy as the major means Gillard employed to address the opponent and indicate that she is not less powerful than her opponent.Redressive action is in the use of euphemisms, is minimal and presupposed by politeness norms within the institutional framework: (2) And across these elections, Mr Slipper enjoyed the personal support of the Leader of the Opposition.(The Sydney Morning Herald, 2012).
The degree how negatively Gillard evaluates the opponent's positive face is followed in the irony and sarcasm which are embodied FTAs in the next examples: (3) "the Leader of the Opposition is always wonderful about walking into this Parliament and giving me and others a lecture about what they should take responsibility for"; "the Leader of the Opposition and others started ducking for cover.";"Capable of double standards, but incapable of change."(The Sydney Morning Herald, 2012).
Gillard skilfully utilized humour, irony, and sarcasm, which played a crucial role in mitigating the potential negative impact of her confrontational language while powerfully conveying her message.Examples (4) indicate how subtly in her criticism Julia Gillard ridicules her opponent: (4) "Big on lectures of responsibility, very light on accepting responsibility himself for the vile conduct of members of his political party.";"He's certainly in a position to speak more intimately about Mr Slipper than I am, ..."; "political game-playing imposed by the Leader of the Opposition now looking at his watch because apparently a woman's spoken too long"."I was offended too by the sexism, by the misogyny of the Leader of the Opposition catcalling across this table at me as I sit here as Prime Minister, and the sexism inherent in that."(The Sydney Morning Herald, 2012).
As examples (5) show another peculiar mitigation technique employed by Gillard is delivering FTA against her opponent quoting his own utterances.To lessen the force of the rudeness and her impoliteness of the words she highlights that the initial offence has been performed by the opponent: (5) "He has said, and I quote,…"; "This is the Leader of the Opposition who has said"; "To which the Leader of the Opposition says";."I suggest you check the records."(The Sydney Morning Herald, 2012).
In this way Gillard reaches balance and compromise between what she intends to utter and what her opponent wants to accept, bound to the fact that those quotes were officially recorded speech acts.In this context, speech acts of regret expression and allusions to insults are employed to maintain her negative face and can be considered face enhancing for Gillard.
Another effective redressive strategy used by Gillard is the total absence of direct address to the opponent.To keep to the maxims of politeness, avoiding mentioning the name of the opponent can be considered as a deliberate communicative strategy of the speaker realised through the tactics of discrediting and distancing.All together omitting the calling of the opponent by the name appears to be the most insulting.Tony Abbot is pronounced as "this man", "he"-12 and 7 times respectively and as "the Leader of the Opposition" 48 times throughout the speech.It may be evaluated as both: face threatening and face supportive at the same time for it was clearly insulting but politically correct.
An important detail in how Gillard conducts the facework is her agreement with the core idea of staying politically correct, even when the personal insult to her individual face is sensitive.To illustrate the closest when Gillard's face is disentangled from politeness, we offer the following examples (6).Under the threat of losing self-face on a personal level (as a daughter and woman), she alludes in her speech to former Abbot's rude mention of her father's death, his nicknaming her and offensively addressing as a bitch and witch: (6) "Well can I indicate to the Leader of the Opposition the Government is not dying of shame, my father did not die of shame, what the Leader of the Opposition should be ashamed of is his performance in this Parliament and the sexism he brings with it.";"I was offended when the Leader of the Opposition went outside in the front of parliament and stood next to a sign that said 'Ditch the Witch'".(The Sydney Morning Herald, 2012).This example of distorted perception of gender and status difference, in the context that must entail equality, proves that in political communication the individual face sensitivity concedes to collective affiliations.Again, mitigation is observed in the indirect illocutions (examples (7)) used by Gillard.This linguistic tool is in use when the speaker tends to sound more polite as indirect illocutions "increase the degree of optionality, and because the more indirect the illocution is, the more diminished and tentative its force tends to be" (Leech, 1983).In the speech, to reduce the anticipated negative effect of speech acts of accusation, Julia Gillard utilises impersonal rhetoric through the syntactical means of elliptical grammar structures, idiomatic vocabulary, and repetitions to reinforce her message and sway the publics opinion: (7) "I've had him yell at me to shut up in the past.";"Doesn't turn a hair about any of his past statements, doesn't walk into this Parliament and apologise to the women of Australia.Doesn't walk into this Parliament and apologise to me for the things that have come out of his mouth.But now seeks to use this as a battering ram against someone else".(The Sydney Morning Herald, 2012).
Brown and Levinson's theory of face focuses on individual face dimensions and sensitivities which entail the use of FTA or different redressing strategies.In political communication the individual face is supplemented with the collective component of face which serves to reflect affiliations, workplace interests and group belongings.Drawing on misogyny in her speech Gillard chooses to employ her fellowship and inclusion faces to directly tackle gender inequality and sexism on behalf of Australian women.The examples (8) show that the collective element of Gillard's face emerges through inclusive "we" and "Australian women" to create a sense of shared identity and experience with women, and to show her support and recognition for them: (8) "I am always offended by statements that are anti-women…"; "because of the Leader of the Opposition's motivations, this Parliament today should reject this motion and the Leader of the Opposition should think seriously about the role of women in public life and in Australian society because we are entitled to a better standard than this."(The Sydney Morning Herald, 2012).
Above all, we trace few other indicators that reveal how Julia Gillard takes offence to her personal self.Honesty and straightforwardness of Gillard's facework is observed in the manner she utilises her moral and dignity face emerging through the rhetoric device of anaphora "I am/have been/was offended" and the personal pronoun "I" in the speech, which is used 794 times.
Giving a close look at the ways of avoiding direct accusations, we see examples how Gillard softens the strength of her language by using hedges: Instead of course,…; Well,…; Well, let me remind; Well with respect, I'd say…; Well can I indicate, I believe; conditional statements: Because if this today was an exhibition of his new feminine side, well I don't think we've got much to look forward to in terms of changed conduct.;The Leader of the Opposition says do something; well he could do something himself; hypothetical scenarios: "Well, I hope the Leader of the Opposition has got a piece of paper and he is writing out his resignation.";rhetorical questions: "Did he walk up to Mr Slipper in the middle of the service and say he was disgusted to be there?Was that the attitude he took?".Still such findings are not numerous which proves Gillard investing few efforts into mitigating the general force of criticism delivered through FTAs to the opponent's positive and negative face.

Conclusions
The interaction of the politician's face, politeness, and power in the institutional discourse has been defined in this research.The analysis of Julia Gillard's facework and the ways she utilises linguistic devices to construct her faces in the argument on misogyny and exerts her authority has been performed.The political leader fully utilized her high status to exert power by addressing the opposition leader on the question of misogyny.She challenges his positive and negative face deriving from particular conventions of a given communicative event-a parliamentary sitting.Gillard uses her status strategically to ridicule and criticize the Leader of the Opposition which further enhanced her political face.By forcefully incorporating bald on record FTA and directly confronting him with minimum mitigation, Gillard demonstrated control over the political performance.She does her facework managing her multitude of faces, particularly self-construal of PM, a female politician, and an individual social self: a woman and a daughter The power dynamics of her facework is skilfully built.She dropped her face as a woman but employed her relational self to assert her status and authority over the opponent.Gillard chooses to employ her collective self (fellowship and inclusion faces) to directly tackle gender inequality and sexism on behalf of Australian women.She performs/avoids face-threatening acts or conducts face-enhancing acts drawing from social values and societal expectations.Constructing her facework, Gillard puts forward certain faces based on her personally held values and derived from her conceptualization of the status and credibility.Overall, Julia Gillard's strategic use of FTAs, confrontational language and accusatory statements mitigated by redressive strategies, allowed her to assert her authority as the Prime Minister.Contrary to her opponent she brought attention to the issue of sexism and misogyny in Australian politics without conceding to open rudeness and impoliteness.Politeness exercised by Gillard is prescribed by symbolic power and can be understood as conforming to the expectations and norms of behaviour set by the institutional discourse.
Perspective of the research is seen in pursuing the analysis further to trace the important social ana cultural factors which will lead to a deeper understanding of the potential degree when face-threatening strategy in political discourse can be recognized institutionally acceptably polite.