Goffman – Interaction Ritual
On Face-Work (1955)
“For example, in polite society, a handshake that should not have been extended becomes one which
cannot be declined.” (28.4)
Outline of Essay
1) Definitions Face, line, social worth, undertaking
2) The Basic kinds of face-work
3) Making Points – The Aggressive Use of Face Work. Situation as face-work contest/match.
Any of the threats to face/situation can be exploited, manipulated. Fishing for compliments,
setting up confirmatory events, offenses you know others will take (it being unbecoming to
complain), take your ball and go home, debase self to guilt others.
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
The Choice of Appropriate Face-Work
Cooperation at Face-Work
Ritual Roles of the Self
Spoken Interaction
Face and Social Relationships (41)
The Nature of the Ritual Order
1) DEFINITIONS
a) Face, line, social worth, undertaking,
2) THE BASIC KINDS OF FACE-WORK
a) The avoidance process (15.3)
i) Dealing with incidents
(1) Deny/overlook – “tactful blindness”
(2) Admit but continue
(3) Turn away / time out
b) The corrective process (19.1)
i) Ritual disequilibrium
(1) Interchange
(a) Offense
(b) Challenge
(c) Offering
(i) Redefinition
(ii) Compensation/punishment/expiation
1. Rehabilitation of one’s “type” – One really is well developed Meadean self
2. Assurance that ritual code is intact
(d) Acceptance
(e) Gratitude
3) MAKING POINTS – THE AGGRESSIVE USE OF FACE WORK
a)
Any of the threats to face/situation can be exploited, manipulated. Fishing for compliments,
setting up confirmatory events, offenses you know others will take (it being unbecoming to
complain), take your ball and go home, debase self to guilt others.
b)
Situation as face-work contest/match. Snubs, digs, one-up-man-ship, bitchiness.
c)
Interactive aggression is as much about showing you can maintain interactive balance as about
the content of snubs and such. Ripostes, squelches, toppers. "Oh yeah, well take this!"
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4) THE CHOICE OF APPROPRIATE FACE-WORK
a) Social norms govern expected handlings of threats to face. When is it appropriate to show poise,
when should one break down and apologize, etc.? Knife-edge moment when participants don't
know if a small gaffe will be ignored by offender or whether attention will be called via an apology,
explanation, etc.
5) COOPERATION AT FACE-WORK
a) Face-work is frequently a group project. Savoire-faire, tact, diplomacy, gaffe, and faux pas can
refer to either the actor's own face or that of others.
"Thus, for example, in polite society, a handshake that perhaps should not have been extended
becomes one that cannot be declined" (28).
b) Situations become a cooperation game in which individual interest in own and other's face drives
participants toward a collectively "rational" equilibrium.
c) Second order tact. Helping others to help themselves helping oneself (29). Self-effacing
prefaces. Warnings about gaffes to avoid. Perhaps the most classic: "I'm just a beginner (so be
gentle, etc.)."
d) Hinting communication (30). Deniable communication.
e) Mutual self-depreciation/other-praise rituals. Negative bargaining. "No, I insist, let me pay." "No, I
couldn't." Etc.
f)
Goffman claims that our willingness and ability to play this game is what makes it possible for the
self to be a "ritually delicate object" and for talk to proceed as we know it (and, in some sense, this
way is akin to what Simmel described in "Socialty as Play Form of Sociation")
6) RITUAL ROLES OF THE SELF
a) Double definition of self
i)
OBJECT/ME?: Image pieced together from expressive implications of flow of events
(1)
ii)
Sacred objects subject to slights and profanation
SUBJECT/I?: Player in ritual game who copes dis/honorably, un/diplomatically with
judgmental contingencies of situation
b) "…the person seems to have a special license to accept mistreatment at his own hands that he
does not have right to accept from others" (32). Might be a self-limiting system: under normal
circumstances one won't overslam oneself but others might.
c) Only you can forgive slight affronts by others to your sacred image. Only others can forgive such
affronts you administer to yourself. Institutional design: “…each participant tends to be given the
right to handle only those matters which he will have little motivation for mishandling.” (33.2)
Rights and obligations assigned so as provide no incentives subject/I to abuse role of self as
sacred object.
7) SPOKEN INTERACTION
a) Stunning density of symbolic stuff means face-to-face talk is full of this ritual stuff to an extreme
degree.
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b) “to be in a state of talk” – participants declare themselves open to ongoing flow of communication
c) Single focus of thought and attention. Participants signal ongoing participation. Non-participants
signal their non-participation. .
d) “occasion” as a naturally bounded unit (35.8)
e) “Rules” – structure of self related to structure of spoken interaction
f)
DJR: I think on 36.3-37.1 we get translation of looking-glass-self into interaction order terms.
g) Interaction proceeds in spurts (37.3).
h) Any interaction initiation is risky : others may ignore you or otherwise "not play along." Or she may
insult others, requiring a comeback. Or praise them, requiring a denial.
i)
Once something is thrown out there, it disrupts ritual equilibrium and someone else present needs
to rebalance things.
j)
"His aim is to save face; his effect is to save the situation" (39.2). For situations it's good that self
works the way it does. For self it is good that talk works the way it does.
k) Lots of hazards with this system, of course. Reciprocal relation of face and interaction –
sometimes you can save one only by losing the other (39.5)
l)
Cf. (40.4) “Too little perceptiveness, too little savoir faire, … person comes to be a real threat to
society…. To much perceptiveness, too much pride … person becomes thin-skinned … too much
savoir-faire … too socialized ….”
m) The reciprocity of the system makes it possible for us to "be" together.
8) FACE AND SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS (41)
a) Encounters are generally part of "repeated play" at relationships. Goal is to get into and out of
social encounters without changing relationship between interactants or without disturbing
expected trajectory. "Hello again" and "Until next time" link interaction across space-time of
ongoing relationships. Emotional energy put into these bridge the interaction-empty spaces in
between encounters.
b) HINT AT BIG THEORY (42.1-5): ongoing relationships motivate encounters; encounters maintain
ongoing relationships; relationship partners often share face; self  encounter  relationships 
society
9) THE NATURE OF THE RITUAL ORDER
a) More accommodative than competitive. Goffman calls logic used to think about other types of
social order "school boy" – very Catholic, simple economistic : work hard to get ahead, obey the
rules or risk punishment. A "hard, dull game."
b) Society runs an easier game, Goffman suggests.
Whatever his position in society, the person insulates himself by blindnesses,
half-truths, illusions, and rationalizations.
He makes an "adjustment" by
convincing himself, with the tactical support of his intimate circle, that he is what
he wants to be and that he would not do to gain his ends what the others have
one to gain theirs. And as for society, if the person is willing to be subject to
informal social control – if he is willing to find out from hints and glances and
tactful cues what his place is, and keep it – then there will be little objection to his
furnishing this place at his own discretion, with all the comfort, elegance, and
nobility that his wit can muster for him. … Social life is an uncluttered, orderly
thing because the person voluntarily stays away from the places and topics and
times where he is not wanted and where he might be disparaged for going. He
cooperates to save his own face, finding that there is much to be gained from
venturing nothing. (43.6)
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c) In interaction, it's not about "facts" but about ideas about oneself. "Ideas are vulnerable not to
facts and things but to communications" (43.8). Social interaction not a simple game of reward
and punishment but rather one of playing or not playing.
d) "Societies everywhere, if they are to be societies, must mobilize their members as self-regulating
participants in social encounters" (44.7).
i)
So, what minimal model of humans do we need if we are to wind them up and see "society"
happen?
ii)
Ritual. Perceptive, have feelings attached to self, self expressed through face, pride, honor,
dignity, considerateness, tact, poise.
"Universal human nature is not a very human thing."
"The general capacity to be bound by moral rules may well belong to the individual, but the
particular set of rules which transforms him into a human being derives from requirements
established in the ritual organization of social encounters."
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Goffman – On Face-Work (1955)
Journal Exercises
1) Catalog conversational disbandment lines and techniques
2) Catalog things that are “perceived” but not “noticed” during interaction
3) Examples of using face-work to leverage social worth
e.g., it’s rude/tacky to do what I did in handing out photocopy without holes or proper citation.
4) What kinds of pauses are acceptable in what kinds of circumstances? What do different kinds of
pauses mean? Face-to-Face, phone calls, email messaging.
5) Turn taking, interruption, etc.
Paper Topics
1) Gender and Face-work
2) Face-Work On-Line – Applying Goffman’s Ideas to Listserve “interaction”
3) Speaking Up: On the Interactional Risks Associated With Opening One’s Mouth and How
Social Institutions Minimize These. Cf. The insurance industry and the invention of the
corporation.
4) “The safety of solitude and the danger of social encounters”
5) An analysis of the relationship re-affirming function of greetings and farewells in love letters (or
business letters or casual encounters around campus)
Concepts, Words & Phrases
Boner
Brick
Considerateness
Diplomacy
Face
In face / out of face
Definition of the
situation
Role
Faux pas
Gaffe
Hints and innuendo
Line
Noblesse oblige
Occasion
Poise
Savoir faire
Second order tact
Social worth
Tact
References
Collins, Randall. 1988. “Theoretical Continuities in Goffman's Work.” Pp. 41-63 in Erving
Goffman : exploring the interaction order, edited by Paul Drew and Anthony Wooton.
Cambridge: Polity.
Drew, Paul, Erving Goffman, and Anthony Wooton. 1988. Erving Goffman : exploring the
interaction order. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
Durkheim, Emile, and Gn. 1915. The elementary forms of the religious life. London: Allen &
Unwin.
Goffman, Erving. 1967. Interaction ritual; essays in face-to-face behavior. Chicago,: Aldine Pub. Co.
Goffman, Erving. 1981. Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
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