Brown and Levinson's claim to provide a universally valid model of face appears unjustified, given the cultural variations in concepts of face, as for instance in Chinese, where the social and moral connotations lie beyond the semantic boundary of negative and positive face. This calls for an alternative, relative face orientation construct to address cultural variation and to identify two competing forces shaping our interactions, the ideal social identity and the ideal individual autonomy, assuming face is a public image every individual wishes to claim for him/herself.