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Peter Lunt on Erving Goffman

Social Science Bites

CHAPTER

The Importance of the Game Concept in Government Thinking

Goffman's often accused of being overly focused on the micro level of sociology so he looks at these tiny interactions but loses a sense of the bigger picture. He was drawn into debates that were happening particularly around the notion of speech acts and it drew him into an idea that many of what he'd been regarding as formal structures could actually be understood as linguistics, as rules in language rather than as formal social structures. So I think what we begin to see is that he had various sorts of ideas. On the other hand one can begin to see that always for Goffman it was the relationship between society and these structures of interaction in everyday life was imminent.

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