Abstract: Face plays a critical role in explaining (im)politeness phenomena. However, the connotation and the classification of face have always been controversial due to its limited cultural applicability as a result of its Western cultural context-biased basis. As to this, cultural context models effectively elucidate different understanding of the connotations of face respectively in Chinese and Western cultural contexts from three main layers, i.e. cultural belief system, cultural communication pattern and cultural linguistic expressions, which not only reflects distinctive tendencies to face-threatening acts from different cultures, but also effectually expands the applicability of the idea of face in various socio-cultural contexts.