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Goffmans contribution to the social theory for our understanding of social interaction is profound. His detailed analysis and observations illuminate and reveal the finest nuances of everyday social interactions (Flanagan, 2015; Branaman, 1997). Distinguished by his literary style and use of anecdotes, Goffman has had a pervasive influence not only in sociology but also in other disciplines which serve to keep his ideas alive and relevant (Flanagan, 2015; Higgins, 1990). In particular his dramaturgical approach to social interaction is regarded as a “pioneering creation” (Smith, 2002). Despite this, his works drew considerable criticism for being unsystematic (Haugh & Bargiela-Chiapppini, 2009), for reducing humans to manipulative and superficial beings (Branaman, 1997) and for a lack of an explicit conception of power (Gouldner, 1970). But to what extent are these judgments valid? This essay seeks to offer key insights and appreciation of Goffmans contributions with a particular focus on his dramaturgy and interaction order. It seeks to appraise the key critiques and better understand the contribution of Goffman to the way we think about social interaction.
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Erving Goffman Archives, Univ of Nevade
Goffman’s modest claims about the “proper” study of interaction (in a work designed to show us our many improprieties), is a psychology that is decidedly anti-psychological and, certainly, anti-psychiatric; it is anti- a number of things. It disavows (mocks, really) anything that has claims to universal importance. Goffman’s is a psychology that, in his words, is “stripped and cramped to suit the sociological study of conversation, track meets, banquets, jury trials, and street loitering." It’s a view of society as a domain of many kinds of players involved in any number of serious and trivial games: “ritual games of having a self”; the encounters of couples dancing, men boxing, members of a jury deliberating); whether exchanges of individuals or teams, whether social actors in conflict or in love, our most contrived or most sincere selves are, at most and at best, grasped as “interactants,” who have been taught (and taught ourselves) to feel and to display (to others and ourselves) the pride, poise, or dignity we possess; persons with feelings, say, are interactants who make claims to these feelings and claims to be the person implicated by such deep and sincere feelings.
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VERHOEVEN, J. C. (1993) "An Interview with Erving Goffman." Research on Language and Social Interaction. 26 (3) pp. 317-348
In this interview Goffman refuses to be labeled to belong to a special theoretical approach of sociology and compares his position with some theoretical streams in sociology. He links his position with the experiences of scholars trained in the late 40s at the University of Chicago, and looks back at teachers and books that were influential for his further development as a sociologist. An important part of the interview is dedicated to a reflection on his book Frame Analysis. This leads the interview to a reflection of the interviewee on the individual and society. After this theme Goffman offers his opinion on social reality that might receive another meaning because society frames this reality. The analysis is linked with the Western world, and more particularly the American society. Goffman describes his relation with the work of Weber, Durkheim, and Parsons and calls himself a positivist. He explains his opinion on objective and subjective experience, tells how he is doing his research, and the problems he meets according to some critics. He considers his work as more inductive, and he contends that he does not start from or create a big theory. He explains what he sees as a value-free approach in sociology, and describes the opposition between quantitative and qualitative research in American Sociology. At the end he offers his vision on Symbolic Interactionism, the position of G.H. Mead, J. Dewey, H. Blumer, and social pragmatism in relation to the development of Symbolic Interactionism.
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