Little dramas of discomposure: On doing face-work with disaligning actions

Abstract

Usually, they are attributed to mere bodily reactions which the portrayer does not control. However, that is not an abstract fact, but a definition of the situation that is a social achievement. This achievement is consequential: it allows for a form of everyday communication from which intention is drained, but judgment is not. Little dramas of discomposure are thus important elements of face-work that can be analyzed as such: They allow for a negotiation of identity through reaction to ascriptions made by others, but reactions that remain on the back stage and thus avoid negotiations of rank and hierarchy that would usually accompany communications of judgment. © 2012 Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction. All rights reserved.