1. “On Face Work,” 1967
Goffman ( )

2. 1) Background:
-He’s considered by some to be the most influential 20th c. sociologists.
-This work is in “microsociology.” His focus is on everyday interactions between individuals. As opposed to Marx’ macrosociology, where individuals are subordinate to gigantic cultural forces. Goffman is asking a question like, “When I talk to you, what sorts of invisible social rules are we following?” Marx is asking questions like, “How did all of human societies evolve?” There’s a difference in the scope of the subject matter.

3. 2) Dramaturgy
He called his view a “dramaturgical approach.” There is a famous Shakespeare quote: “all the world’s a stage.” Much of Goffman’s work was an elaboration on that theme. We play parts, take roles in our everyday interactions.
There’s some influence on Goffman from Durkheim, and some from the symbolic interactionists

4. Shakespeare All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation

5. Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

6. 3) Frontstage and Backstage
He doesn’t use this vocabulary in the essay I gave you, but it is important vocabulary to know when thinking about Goffman.
When you are performing, you are “frontstage.” You are following certain rules in your behavior. We’ll talk about those rules in a minute. But, in short, you are acting.
When you are “backstage,” the rules have relaxed. You are not performing.

7. frontstage

8. Also frontstage

9. backstage

10. Frontstage and backstage as relative terms
For me, when I am in front of the class, I am “frontstage.”
When I go to the teacher lounge between classes, I am to some extent “backstage.”
But to some extent I am not. I am still performing, but it’s a performance in front of the other teachers, not in front of students.

11. 4) Line
Goffman’s next piece of vocabulary is “line”: When you have an encounter with another person, there is “a pattern of verbal and nonverbal acts by which you express a view of the situation and through this an evaluation of the participants, especially yourself.”
Consider the role of the professor, and the relationship between the professor and the student.
Those of you who have studied in more than one country know, this relationship is socially constructed. It differs from one society to another.
But it also differs from individual to individual.

12. For example, different professors will play the “professor” role differently.
When I went to graduate school, there was a professor who was from poor family, and a small town, he attended bad grade-schools, but he was really smart, he got into good university. He wanted to turn himself into someone people would take seriously. So he always dressed in suit and tie, he carried leather briefcase, had his students call him “Dr…”
He addressed all hist students as “Mr…” or “Ms…”
His classroom was very formal.

13. Meanwhile, I wear a flower shirt, shorts and sandals, and tell my students to call me “Dave.”
We both given a certain role that has, to some extent, been socially defined (“professor.”) But we also both decided to adopt certain roles (“lines”), to interpret the given role in different ways. We are both “acting,” we are projecting a certain kind of image.
We all do this, all the time, when we decide what clothes to put on in the morning, when we decide how to speak to people, in all of our interactions.

14. Goffman and symbolic interactionism:
This might sound familiar from what we discussed with Symbolic Interactionism. To some extent roles are imposed on us by the outside, but to some extent the role is created by me, I take the role I am given and reinterpret it. This is done interactively.

15. 7. Face His next piece of vocabulary is “face.”
This concept is normally thought of as Chinese/Confucian. Lin Yutang: “Face cannot be translated or defined.”
Goffman thinks it exists in every culture, and it is central to all communication.
Goffman defines it as: “the positive social value a person claims for himself by the line others interpret him as having taken during a social encounter.”

16. 8) One can lose face, or gain face, or save face, or give face to others
To lose face: to not live up to the line you have created for yourself. (Have you ever had a prof lose face?)
To Save face = in a situation where others might think you have lost face, you sustain the impression that you have not.
To give face to others = to arrange for another person to take a better line than he otherwise might have
[examples? I do this in the classroom all the time, to a student asking a dumb question. Not in China, of course, no student here would ask a dumb question.]

17. 9) Maintaining face
It is a basic rule of interactions that we try to maintain our own face, and that of people we encounter. We do this by accepting/not questioning whatever line they have established.
Even if you think I’m full of shit, you’re probably not going to say that. Why not? You might be wrong, it might affect your grade, it violates the social definition of professor and student. Goffman gives a handful of reasons.
But more than that: According to Goffman, this is a basic rule of how we communicate. So if I lose face, you will probably ignore it while you are interacting with me.
(If I have chalk on my face, or my zipper is open, you probably won’t tell me, and you will probably pretend it didn’t happen.)

18. 10) Lip service
However, this is a “working” acceptance, not a “real” one.
This isn’t Goffman’s term, it’s a common term in English: “lip service.” This means that you don’t believe what you are saying, but you say it anyway, because the social situation seems to require it.
But it’s not just speech, it is other forms of respect too.

19. 11) Sociology and face-saving
To study face-saving is to study the traffic rules of social interaction.” Face-saving isn’t the goal of the interaction, but it goes on behind every interaction.
We generally support whatever line a person has taken. The person him/herself becomes stuck with it. If the line becomes radically altered, confusion ensues.

20. 8) “Facework”
This is the sort of dancing, or maneuvering, that we do to uphold face.

21. A lot of this is unconscious, habitual.
Each person, subculture, society has different dance moves in this game.
[ONPS gave us a dinner on the Sunday before cases began. A high official from Minzu University was there. We all had wine, and he came around and toasted everyone’s glass. He was careful, when he touched his glass to ours, to move his glass lower than ours. None of the American professors (except for the Chinese American professors) realized that this had a social meaning.]

22. “when face has been threatened, facework must be done
“when face has been threatened, facework must be done. ..a handshake that should not have been extended becomes one that cannot be declined.” (We should discuss this example. Hugs in the US. Kissing in Europe. Bowing in Japan.
Goffman gives an example of asking for a date…you do it in a way that the person can turn you down yet no one is embarrassed.
One tool we use: hints, innuendo, ambiguity, carefully worded jokes. “Hinted communication is deniable communication; it need not be faced up to.” So for instance I can ask someone for a date, she can turn me down, and it can all be done in such a way that we can both deny it ever happened.
“Communications can be bypassed, withdrawn from, disbelieved, conveniently misunderstood, and tactfully conveyed.”

23. More facework Another tool: self-denial (“My Chinese is awful”)
“negative bargaining” where each side tries to improve the face of the other side.
“When a person is responsible for introducing a threat to someone else’s face, he has a right within limits to wriggle out of the difficulty by means of self-abasement.”
“tact,” “savoir-faire”, “diplomacy,” “social skill,” “politeness” are all words we use to refer to people who are especially good at facework.

24. 9) Cultural difference
There seems to be a “single, logically coherent framework of practices” that all individuals, subgroups and societies draw from. In other words, there is a culturally universal aspect to this dance.
I think this is similar to a point we saw in Durkheim. Religions of course differ from culture to culture. But all cultures have religious practices. If they didn’t, they couldn’t exist together as a group, there would be no cohesiveness. And there are similarities in all these religious practices: sacred objects, sacred ideas, sacred people, reunions where group effervescence takes place...
Likewise, the specific ways we save face and give face, the way certain lines are defined by a culture – that’s different from culture to culture. But every culture has face, and has lines, and has ways to save face an give face….

25. 10) Goffman and Durkheim
Goffman refers to the self as a “sacred object” and communication as a “ritual game.”
For Durkheim, religion is everywhere in social life. Remember for Durkheim, there are three elements to every religion: sacred objects, a set of beliefs and practices, and the existence of a community committed to these objects/beliefs. And the role of religion is to hold society together.
Goffman is extending Durkheim’s thesis to communication. Goffman is treating the individual’s face as a sacred object.
European duels.
Greetings and farewells as ritual moves in this dance.

26. Discussion questions:
Have you ever been in a conversation with one person, where you have established a certain line, and another person joins the conversation, but you have a different line with that second person?
Do we agree with the universal aspect of these rituals, claimed by Goffman?

27. Historical aspect to these rituals
Historical aspect to these rituals? (Does kowtowing still exist in China, embedded in everyday communication rituals?)
The concept of someone who is a phony?
(Donald Trump)
Role of clothing and personal appearance in these ritual interactions? (Teachers wearing ties, vs dressing sloppily.)
How has internet changed this stuff?
Aspergers/autism