Free Historical Figure In Sociology: Erving Goffman Research Paper Example

Being born in June 11 in 1922 such an outstanding personality and significant figure in the history of sociology as Erving Goffman was destined to remain in this world for sixty years. In most cases his name is associated among people exceptionally with sociological researches. Nevertheless, Erving Goffman is also an American author of Canadian origin as well as the 73rd President of the American Sociological Association. That is why there is no wonder that Goffman is thought to be the most frequently cited scientist in the social sciences.
Moving from one city to another one, Goffman was in search of something that can be worth his attention. While studying at the University of Manitoba Goffman’s core specialization was strangely enough chemistry and he tried his hand in cinematography. But in fact his thorny path started from the moment of entering the University of Toronto where he became interested in sociology. A truly successful completion of a four-year study was followed by getting a master’s and doctoral degree that contributed to the further development of Goffman’s scientific interests. Being focused mostly on the frame analysis and stigmatization, Goffman decided to expand his field of interest and research and tried to penetrate deeper into the problem of interpersonal interaction. Goffman in his turn was deeply convinced that people in order to understand and digest the information they get in their daily life use expectations and typification in a certain way. These specific expectations that are used for evaluating each or that social situation were called “frames” and this concept was carefully developed. First of all, the main idea of the Goffman works is that in order to learn about the everyday reality, people use social roles that are not limited as they change with the fast-paced life and can be filled up and used. Soon, Goffman combined his ideas and compared daily life with theatre and consequently named this approach as “dramaturgical approach”. People move from one life situation to another one, as actors in the theater. People facing everyday life were compared to the actors who need to change masks and behave themselves in another way according to the performance itself and existing at that moment conditions. These ideas were subsequently depicted in Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Being under a strong influence of George Mead and Herbert Blumer most scientists tried to compare his theory to symbolic interactionism though Goffman himself didn’t think in such a way.
Analysis of frames was soon followed by an ardent interest in “stigmatization” that was shown in Goffman’s work Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity written in 1963. It is focused on how society determines its specific ways to categorize people according to their appearance, state of health and how it defines a set of qualities that are considered to be normal and natural for each of the categories. The problem of stigmatization is acute nowadays and sometimes people even don’t notice when they start thinking of people (even unknown) as about abnormal or those with whom they wouldn’t communicate at all. Goffman's most famous works Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order (1971), The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959) are extremely rich in content and had a major impact on anthropology, sociology, linguistics, ethology political science, psychology
All in all, Erving Goffman died in 1982, but even after his death distinguishes from other sociologists especially because works written by him do not lose their value after more than thirty years and influence on the research thought still continues to increase. This scientist contributed much to the development of modern sociology and has his right to be called a historic figure in sociology.

Works Cited

1) Contemporary authors online. “Erving Goffman” Contemporary authors. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Jan.2015
2) Perez, Cristina. “Revisiting Erving Goffman’s Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity” University of Cambridge. N.p., 1 July 2014. Web. 16 Jan. 2015