It may not be fair, but we are making judgments all the time about who people are and what they do and what they are likely to do based on the way they dress, the way they walk, the way they speak, the vocabulary they use, the grammar they use, the way they speak with their hands--or not.
That's the way life works. At least that's the way sociologist Irving Goffman describes people's behavior in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Goffman claims we are all like actors on a stage, playing roles, consciously or unconsciously presenting an image of ourselves to the people we encounter.
When I read this, it sounds a little superficial. Fake.
And yet, if you think about it, Goffman is not so far off.
Let's say you see a group of people like these individuals here. (I don't know them. I found them on Google Images.) What do you assume about them? Who are they? You can draw all kinds of conclusions about education, income, speech patterns, career, just by the way they are standing, the way they are dressed, the way they do their hair, etc.
Now, once they actually start moving around, speaking, interacting, you might decide you are wrong, or it might just add to your conclusions. You get a bigger picture and you start analyzing what you see again.
And when these people leave work (I'm assuming this is a work photo), they may behave entirely differently.
Sociolinguist James Paul Gee says that each person wears what he calls an identity kit that "comes with the appropriate costume and instructions on how to act, talk, and often write, so as to take on a particular role that others will recognize" (7). Right or wrong, we do draw those kinds of conclusions based on what we recognize and how it relates to things we have found to be "true" in the past. That's kind of what we do as human beings.
Gee also refers to this "identity kit" as a Discourse. Okay, so I know you know the word, but most of this time discourse refers to stretches of language, communication. Gee capitalizes the word to expand its meaning. He explains that "Discourses are ways of being in the world; they are forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances, body positions, and clothes" (6-7).
Whatever you do communicates who you are to the people you encounter in the world.
Whatever you do off line, in person, at school, at work, a restaurant. With your family and friends. When you apply for a job. When you meet someone you don't know. And so on and so on.
Whatever you do online also constructs an identity kit. Yeah.
At least in person you can explain yourself if someone misunderstands, but online? And it's there forever, at least that's what I've been told. And that's complicated. I've changed a lot in the last decade, but if someone finds something I wrote online a decade ago, it doesn't really say who I am today, and the person--or potential employer--may not realize that.
Okay, so before this blog gets so long that you stop reading, I want to say that in writing this, in adding pictures, in choosing vocabulary and references and hyperlinks, I am constructing my own identity kit. I am choosing how I want you to see me. At least I feel like I am choosing. In reality, if I tried to sound super hip and add slang, the kind 20-year-olds use, you would know I was a fraud. If I wrote in French, which I could do, you might think I was fluent, but if you actually were French or knew French really well, you would know I wasn't actually that good at speaking French.
And there I go again, saying too much. My point is that most of you don't know me. This blog and everything else I do online in this class is all most of you know about me. It is my identity kit.
And your blog, the one you set up for this class, is your identity kit for a class of people who can't actually see you. This is it. This is all they know about you. It's your job to consciously present yourself the way you want to be presented. (This is true ethos construction if you remember that from earlier classes. In other words, how do you get people to take you seriously?)
In some of the blogs, you will write about yourself. In others, you'll write about readings. Sometimes you will be required to include pictures. Sometimes you will be required to include hyperlinks.
You'll get the blog prompts from this blog. You'll respond to other blogs to generate class discussion. After all, this is an interactive online class.
Blog deadlines will be on the daily class schedule.
Try and have fun with these identity kits. Unless you really hate having fun. Or you hate looking like you're having fun. Or . . .
That's the way life works. At least that's the way sociologist Irving Goffman describes people's behavior in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Goffman claims we are all like actors on a stage, playing roles, consciously or unconsciously presenting an image of ourselves to the people we encounter.
When I read this, it sounds a little superficial. Fake.
And yet, if you think about it, Goffman is not so far off.
Let's say you see a group of people like these individuals here. (I don't know them. I found them on Google Images.) What do you assume about them? Who are they? You can draw all kinds of conclusions about education, income, speech patterns, career, just by the way they are standing, the way they are dressed, the way they do their hair, etc.
Now, once they actually start moving around, speaking, interacting, you might decide you are wrong, or it might just add to your conclusions. You get a bigger picture and you start analyzing what you see again.
And when these people leave work (I'm assuming this is a work photo), they may behave entirely differently.
Sociolinguist James Paul Gee says that each person wears what he calls an identity kit that "comes with the appropriate costume and instructions on how to act, talk, and often write, so as to take on a particular role that others will recognize" (7). Right or wrong, we do draw those kinds of conclusions based on what we recognize and how it relates to things we have found to be "true" in the past. That's kind of what we do as human beings.
Gee also refers to this "identity kit" as a Discourse. Okay, so I know you know the word, but most of this time discourse refers to stretches of language, communication. Gee capitalizes the word to expand its meaning. He explains that "Discourses are ways of being in the world; they are forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances, body positions, and clothes" (6-7).
Whatever you do communicates who you are to the people you encounter in the world.
Whatever you do off line, in person, at school, at work, a restaurant. With your family and friends. When you apply for a job. When you meet someone you don't know. And so on and so on.
Whatever you do online also constructs an identity kit. Yeah.
At least in person you can explain yourself if someone misunderstands, but online? And it's there forever, at least that's what I've been told. And that's complicated. I've changed a lot in the last decade, but if someone finds something I wrote online a decade ago, it doesn't really say who I am today, and the person--or potential employer--may not realize that.
Okay, so before this blog gets so long that you stop reading, I want to say that in writing this, in adding pictures, in choosing vocabulary and references and hyperlinks, I am constructing my own identity kit. I am choosing how I want you to see me. At least I feel like I am choosing. In reality, if I tried to sound super hip and add slang, the kind 20-year-olds use, you would know I was a fraud. If I wrote in French, which I could do, you might think I was fluent, but if you actually were French or knew French really well, you would know I wasn't actually that good at speaking French.
And there I go again, saying too much. My point is that most of you don't know me. This blog and everything else I do online in this class is all most of you know about me. It is my identity kit.
And your blog, the one you set up for this class, is your identity kit for a class of people who can't actually see you. This is it. This is all they know about you. It's your job to consciously present yourself the way you want to be presented. (This is true ethos construction if you remember that from earlier classes. In other words, how do you get people to take you seriously?)
In some of the blogs, you will write about yourself. In others, you'll write about readings. Sometimes you will be required to include pictures. Sometimes you will be required to include hyperlinks.
You'll get the blog prompts from this blog. You'll respond to other blogs to generate class discussion. After all, this is an interactive online class.
Blog deadlines will be on the daily class schedule.
Try and have fun with these identity kits. Unless you really hate having fun. Or you hate looking like you're having fun. Or . . .
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