International Encyclopedia of Communication Online

Extract

Erving Goffman was a sociologist, but what he studied was communication. He established the “interaction order” as a legitimate topic of study; in doing so, he provided the logic for why, and the method for how, to study face-to-face behavior. People construct the social world through language and interaction, he argued, so if we are to understand the social world, we must examine the act of social construction, i.e., specific behavior. His method was careful attention to details of naturally occurring contexts of co-presence (when people are physically together). Interaction socially constructs meaning, even when it appears nothing noteworthy is occurring. Language and social interaction (LSI) scholars analyze the same everyday behaviors, whether or not they explicitly acknowledge Goffman's influence (→  Language and Social Interaction ). The main strands of research in LSI today are all different ways of studying Goffman's interaction order (→  Conversation Analysis ; Ethnography of Communication ; Ethnomethodology ; Language and Social Psychology ). Goffman was born in Manville, Alberta, Canada, in 1922. In 1945 he received his BA from the University of Toronto. He received his MA in 1949 and his PhD in 1968 from the University of Chicago. He taught at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1958 to 1968, and then at the University of Pennsylvania until his death in ... log in or subscribe to read full text