Situational Rhetoric and Self-Presentation

Abstract

The situational use of language is a major vehicle of strategic self-presentation. It is now some 25 years since Goffman first brought to the attention of social scientists the importance of the ways that we present ourselves in social interaction. In his Presentation of self (1959), he clearly distinguished between the performances by which certain practical ends were achieved and the supplementary, or stylistic qualifications of those performances by which the actors displayed the kinds of persons they wished to be taken to be. Going on from his early work, Goffman explored the conventions of language, behavior, costume, and so on, by which that presentation is achieved. However, it has become increasingly clear that the role of language in social interaction is often far more important than that of more visible forms of display (Goffman, 1981). In this chapter I propose to sum up and then develop the work that has been done in recent years on the central role of language in the creation of social order, and the links between language and the social situations within which it is used.