Goffman’s Dramaturgical Analysis

One of the most popular variants of symbolic interaction ism is dramatically analysis.
As first developed by Erving Goffman (1959 [1956]), dramatically analysis takes literally
Shakespeare’s line that “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.”
From Goffman’s point of view, people always play roles. This fact is most evident when
we are “front stage” in public settings. Just as being front stage in a play requires the use
of props, set gestures, and memorized lines, so does acting in public space. A server in a
restaurant, for example, must dress in certain way, smile, and recite fixed lines (“How are
you? My name is Sam and I’m your server today. May I get you a drink before you order
your meal?”). When the server goes “backstage,” he or she can relax from the front-stage
performance and discuss it with fellow actors (“Those kids at table six are driving me
nuts!”). Thus, we often distinguish between our public roles and our “true” selves.
Note, however, that even backstage we engage in role-playing and impression management;
it’s just that we are less likely to be aware of it. For instance, in the kitchen, a
server may try to present herself in the best possible light to impress another server so
that she can eventually ask him out for a date. Thus, the implication of dramaturgical
analysis is that there is no single self, just the ensemble of roles we play in various social
contexts. Servers in restaurants play many roles off the job. They play on basketball
teams, sing in church choirs, and hang out with friends at shopping malls. Each role is
governed by norms about what kinds of clothes to wear, what kind of conversation to
engage in, and so on. Everyone plays on many front stages in everyday life.
They do not always do so enthusiastically. If a role is stressful, people may engage in
role distancing. Role distancing involves giving the impression of just “going through
the motions” but lacking serious commitment to a role. Thus, when people think a role
they are playing is embarrassing or beneath them, they typically want to give their peers
the impression that the role is not their true self. My parents force me to sing in the
church choir; I’m working at McDonald’s just to earn a few extra dollars, but I’m going
back to college next semester; this old car I’m driving is just a loaner. These are the kinds
of rationalizations individuals offer when distancing themselves from a role.
Onstage, people typically try to place themselves in the best possible light; they engage
in impression management. For example, when students enter medical school,
they quickly adopt a new medical vocabulary and wear a white lab coat to set themselves
apart from patients. They try to model their behavior after the doctors who have authority
over them. When dealing with patients, they may hide their ignorance under medical
jargon to maintain their authority. They may ask questions they know the answer to so
that they can impress their teachers. According to one third-year student: “The best way
of impressing [advisers] with your competence is asking questions you know the answer
to. Because if they ever put it back on you, “Well what do you think?” then you can tell
them what you think and you’d give a very intelligent answer because you knew it. You
didn’t ask it to find out information. You ask it to impress people.” Medical students
don’t take a course in how to act like a doctor. They learn their new role in the course of
impression management (Haas and Shaffir, 1987).
When people interact socially, they communicate verbally and nonverbally. We
usually don’t give much thought to how communication is possible, but it is actually a
process so complex that even today’s most advanced supercomputer cannot conduct a
natural-sounding conversation (Kurzweil, 1999: 61, 91).
Verbal and Nonverbal Communication
Sixty years ago, an article appeared in a British newspaper trumpeting the invention of an
electronic translating device at the University of London. According to the article, “As fast
as [a user] could type the words in, say, French, the equivalent in Hungarian or Russian
would issue forth” (quoted in Silberman, 2000: 225). The report was an exaggeration, to
put it mildly. It soon became a standing joke that if you asked a computer to translate “The
spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” into Russian, the output would read, “The vodka is
good, but the steak is lousy.” Today we are closer to high-quality machine translation than
we were in the 1950s. However, a practical universal translator exists only on Star Trek.
Why can people translate better than computers can?
Because computer programs find it difficult to make sense of the social and cultural
context in which language is used. The same words can mean different things in different
settings, so computers, lacking contextual cues, routinely botch translations. That is
why machine translation works best when applications are restricted to a single social
context—
say, weather forecasting or oil exploration. In such cases, specialized vocabularies
and meanings specific to the context of interest are built into the program. Ambiguity
is reduced and computers can “understand” the meaning of words well enough
to translate them with reasonable accuracy. Similarly, humans must be able to reduce
ambiguity and make sense of words to become good translators. They do so by learning
the nuances of meaning in different cultural and social contexts over an extended time.
Nonverbal cues assist them in this task