GoffmanEmerson

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Goffman/Emerson

• Performances

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THE FRAME

• GOFFMAN DESCRIBES CONCEPT OF FRAME WHAT IS GOING
  ON IN THE MIND OF THE PARTICIPANTS? DEVELOP
  EXPLICITLY THE IDEA OF THE LOCALE AS SETTING .THE
  THEME FRAMES WHAT IS DONE AS NATURAL, AND WITHIN
  WHICH IS THE VARIATION.

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• EXAMPLE of Frame
• Canteens are quite different from other kinds of
  eating places like cafes in shopping malls and
  restaurants on the streets, though they are both
  in public and serve a main function eating
  Even among canteens, different locations of
  canteens would have different pictures.

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BUT Theme social differentiation

• Others pointed out there were differences in
  group behavior
• eg. price differences
• and people impose their own differences
• they group together, creating insiders vs
  outsiders how can you describe that?

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Performances

• Social interaction is a drama
• interaction is performative, actors taking on
  roles and masks as in a staged drama, they employ
  socially prescribed rituals to facilitate not
  only communication but also "collaborative in the
  manufacture of selves. It is this social
  interaction that builds the self. Social
  interaction builds self-regulation, ("face) is a
  fundamental mechanisms of social control.

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• Social interaction conceived in terms of actor's
  reciprocal management of impressions they seek to
  foster. Impression management and reciprocity is
  at the core of presentation of self in the
  ordinary face to face encounter.

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Elements of the drama

• Impression management
• reciprocity
• Interpersonal rituals- gestures and nonverbal
  cues that members who speak a common social
  language use to communicate with each other, are
  sources of mutual trust, social relationships and
  moral order of society.

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The concept of the self

• Through Role Playing
• 1- Achieving an equilibrium by evoking reciprocal
  feelings
• 2- Social Control Face or reputation is a
  fundamental mechanisms of social control.
• ceremonial
• The ways others define the setting and our
  selves is the ways we see ourself

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• This occurs even when one is at mercy of other
• deviance disavowal. Example how to reaffirm self
  if you differ from what is taken as normal
  interaction stutterer

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 Key is Physicality

• territories of the self (physical but in a
  situational sense)
• knowing a matter as it is situated in every day
  life. This is seen primarily in physical
  situations of activities and integrity of
  situation.

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• the physical properties of situations that have
  important meanings for participants
• such as front regions and back regions, or Front
  and back stage
• went on to develop an extensive description of
  face-to face situations, or encounters,

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the principle of the integrity of the situation

• any face to face situation is of importance in
  itself, in determining the meaning of what goes
  on in the situation. Concrete events are to some
  degree dependent on the situational context in
  which they occur and can be adequately explained
  only by taking into account the situational
  context. Basic principle is the contextual
  determination of meaning,

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Front stage vs back stage

• Front stage are those that are performing their
  role to the public, back stage they do work to
  make their role come off. the nonpublic part, not
  in relation to the audience, their face work is
  prepared behind the stage, it comes off in the
  front stage.

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Front stage

• place where performance takes place.
• It gives the appearance that the activity
  maintains and embodies certain standards.

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Decorum

• Decorum has to do with the way the performer
  comports himself while in visual or aural range
  of the audience
• the moral requirement, ends in themselves.
• instrumental requirement duties such as an
  employer might demand of employees to maintain
  work levels
• the standards require individuals to show respect
  for the setting one is in, to impress the
  audience or avoid sanctions

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• Activity occurs in the presence of another
  person, some aspects expressively accentuated and
  other aspects which might discredit the fostered
  impression are suppressed.
• ex. school The school setting the decorum for
  teacher and students are not to be late for
  school, class, dress in appropriate manner
• - Front stage language, formal and more distant,

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• Activity occurs in the presence of another
  person, some aspects expressively accentuated and
  other aspects which might discredit the fostered
  impression are suppressed.
• - front region control performer wants to
  segregate audience so that individuals who
  witness him in one of his roles will not witness
  him in another role
• Front region control is audience segregation,

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8 territories of the self

• i) personal space- vary with power and wealth
• ii) the stall (e.g. restaurant table) total
  possession of well bounded space (park bench-- a
  spatial claim, notion of contamination, e.g.
  putting feet on bench

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• iii) use of space
• iv) the turn (queue taking)
• v) the sheath (ones skin)
• vi) possessional territory
• vii)information preserve
• viii) Conversational preserve

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Back Stage

• concept The impression relative to a given
  performance is knowingly contradicted as a manner
  of course.
• in Performance, Can drop his front, step out of
  character
• Backstage control is everywhere, the door
• Backstage control is important, it might
  discredit the definition of the situation being
  maintained in the front stage.
• Regions may switch,

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Ones performance

• about one self to the other Try to avoid
  discrediting performance. Ex Stuttering
• Concept of encounter
• Deference and demeanor

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I1. Applying Emersons three features

• of defining a normal situation

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Details of the setting

• "setting," involving furniture, decor physical
  layout, and other background items which supply
  the scenery and stage props
• a large number of different acts presented from
  behind a small number of fronts we generalize
  from experience

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Persons appearance and demeanor

• Goffmans Theories of the self A proper patient
  vs a proper doctor both must play their
  appropriate roles
• As part of personal front we may include
  insignia of office or rank clothing sex, age,
  and racial characteristics size and looks
  posture speech patterns facial expressions
  bodily gestures

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• When an actor takes on an established social
  role, usually he finds that a particular front
  has already been established for it.
• already several well-established fronts among
  which he must choose. fronts tend to be
  selected, not invented

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Concepts of talk sideline /inconsequential
(Emerson 3)
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• Expect coherence among setting, appearance, and
  manner
• The implication here is that an honest, sincere,
  serious performance is less firmly connected with
  the solid world than one might first assume.