On Wednesday, May 9, Doris Lara wrote:

Hi Jeanne,

I was looking through the trivia index and I saw that you are working on Erving Goffman and some definitions in regards to his model of the human life. I thought I would contribute some things that I came across when I was trying to explain his dramaturgical model of human life. First of all, he describes his view as one of social interaction which views interaction as a series of little dramas. Actors present images of themselves, attempting to manipulate the reactions of other people, protecting their identity, and developing rules to guides behavior in daily encounters. His model is significant because it views society and the people in such a way that it becomes theatrical. He describes it in such a way where people do not 'stage' their social life, but rather live it in innocence and naiveness.

Performance according to Goffman refers to all the activity of an individual occurring during a period marked by his continuous presence before a set of observers and which will have an influence on the observers.

The front is that part of the individuals' performance which regularly functions in a general and fixed fashion to define the situation for those who observe the performance.

The setting refers to the scenic parts of expressive equipment, also referred to as personal front, the items we most intimately identify with the performer and that we naturally expect will follow the performer wherever he goes, such as clothing, sex, age, racial characteristics, size and looks, posture, speech patterns, facial expressions, bodily gestures, etc... Goffman realizes that there are such racial characteristics that are fixed and over a span of life will not vary for the individual from situation to situation. But there are also those such as facial expression that will vary during a performance from one moment to the next.

Interaction is viewed as the performance shaped by environment and audience, constructed to provide others with 'impressions' that are consonant with the desired goals of the actor.

The process of dramatic realization is that in which the actor is forced to both fill the duties of the social role and communicated the activities and characteristics of the role to other people in a consistent manner in order to present a compelling front.

Impression management is the control or lack of and communication of information through the performance.

Teams, as Goffman illustrates is the work of a group of individuals who co-operate in performance , attempting to achieve goals sanctioned by the group.

I hope this is of some help to you, at least in getting some of the terms for Goffman started.

Doris Lara
Moot Court

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