This paper examines motivational concerns underlying relation management via the analysis of four controversial issues in politeness theory: can politeness be explained in terms of face, conversational maxims and/or conversational rights; are some speech acts, such as orders, interpersonally sensitive because they threat our autonomy or because of cost-benefit concerns; should a social identity component be included in Brown and Levinson's concept of negative face; and is face just an individual concern or can it be a group concern. The paper finally presents a more comprehensive analytic framework that distinguishes between face and sociality rights and that incorporates an independent/interdependent perspective.