Until recently, to be in a "public place" meant to feel safe.
That has changed, especially in cities. Urban dwellers sense the
need to quickly react to gestural cues from persons in their
immediate presence in order to establish their relationship to each
other. Through this communication they hope to detect potential
danger before it is too late for self-defense or flight. The
ability to read accurately the "informing signs" by which strangers
indicate their relationship to one another in public or semi-public
places without speaking, has become as important as understanding
the official written and spoken language of the country.
In Relations in Public, Erving Goff man provides a grammar of
the unspoken language used in public places. He shows that the way
strangers relate in public is part of a design by which friends and
acquaintances manage their relationship in the presence of
bystanders. He argues that, taken together, this forms part of a
new domain of inquiry into the rules for co-mingling, or public
order.
Most people give little thought to how elaborate and complex our
everyday behavior in public actually is. For example, we adhere to
the rules of pedestrian traffic on a busy thoroughfare, accept the
usual ways of acting in a crowded elevator or subway car, grasp the
delicate nuances of conversational behavior, and respond to the
rich vocabulary of body gestures. We behave differently at
weddings, at meals, in crowds, in couples, and when alone. Such
everyday behavior, though generally below the level of awareness,
embodies unspoken codes of social understandings necessary for the
orderly conduct of society.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!