The devastatingly original, not to mention often cynical, microsociology of Erving Goffman is based exactly on this theater. Goffman takes this to such lengths that at times his mode of exposition—his very grammar—implodes as each phrase redoubles the cynicism of the one before, thus creating pervasive mistrust of itself as well as of the world referenced. In other words, the mode of exposition bears a mimetic relationship to its content as well as displaying the outer limits of where such cynicism leads, throttling language in excesses of dissimulating fervor. (p46)
Every person lives in a world of social encounters, involving him either in face-to-gace or mediated contact with other participants. In each of these contacts, he tends to act out what is sometimes called a line – that is, a pattern of verbal and nonverbal acts by which he expresses his view of the situation and through this his evaluation of the participants, especially himself. Regardless of whether a person intends to take a line, he will find that he has done so in effect.