Much of the application of face by communication scholars is based upon the scholarship of Brown and Levinson. For our purposes in this chapter, we will combine the material on face from several scholars (primarily Goffman, and Brown and Levinson) in presenting an overall theory of face. For the most part we will not provide extensive coverage of the actual politeness theory. Politeness theory has been criticized for not really being as universally applicable as claimed because of limited validity in non-western cultures.