Integrating Perspectives from Adjacent Disciplines

Abstract

Goffman’s work was introduced in the preceding chapter (p. 59), and its impact on the study of language is explored in more detail in Joseph et al. (2001, Ch. 11). When conducting his doctoral research in the Shetland Islands in the late 1940s, Goffman arrived at the view that

The human tendency to use signs and symbols means that evidence of social worth and of mutual evaluations will be conveyed by very minor things, and these things will be witnessed, as will the fact that they have been witnessed. An unguarded glance, a momentary change in tone of voice, an ecological position taken or not taken, can drench a talk with judgmental significance. Therefore, just as there is no occasion of talk in which improper impressions could not intentionally or unintentionally arise, so there is no occasion of talk so trivial as not to require each participant to show serious concern with the way he handles himself and the others present. […]

In any society, whenever the physical possibility of spoken interaction arises, it seems that a system of practices, conventions, and procedural rules comes into play which functions as a means of guiding and organizing the flow of messages. […]