Text l2

Erving Goffman: 'Footing' in Forms of Talk. University of Pennsylvania Press 1981, p. 124-5.

Power relations are expressed among speakers not only through social deictics but also through subtle changes in alignments of speaker to hearers, as the following example given by Goffman illustrates. The White House incident occurred during the small talk phase that usually follows more serious business, and that generally involves a change of tone and an alteration of the symmetrical power relationship between the President and representatives of the Press.

Washington [up1] - President Nixon, a gentleman of the old school, teased a newspaper woman yesterday about wearing slacks to the White House and made it clear that he prefers dresses on women.

After a bill-signing ceremony in the Oval Office, the President stood up from his desk and in a teasing voice said to UPI's Helen Thomas: "Helen, are you still wearing slacks? Do you prefer them actually? Every time I see girls in slacks it reminds me of China."

Miss Thomas, somewhat abashed, told the President that Chinese women were moving toward Western dress.

"This is not said in an uncomplimentary way, but slacks can do something for some people and some it can't." He hastened to add, "but I think you do very well. Turn around."

As Nixon, Attorney General Elliott L. Richardson, FBI Director Clarence Kelley and other high-ranking law enforcement officials smiling [sic], Miss Thomas did a pirouette for the President. She was wearing white pants, a navy blue jersey shirt, long white beads and navy blue patent leather shoes with red trim.

Nixon asked Miss Thomas how her husband, Douglas Cornell, liked her wearing pants outfits.

"He doesn't mind," she replied.

"Do they cost less than gowns?"

"No," said Miss Thomas.

"Then change," commanded the President with a wide grin as other reporters and cameramen roared with laughter [The Evening Bulletin (Philadelphia), 1973]

This incident points to the power of the president to force an individual who is female from her occupational capacity into a sexual, domestic one during an occasion in which she ... might well be very concerned that she be given her full professional due, and that due only ... Behind this fact is something much more significant: the contemporary social definition that women must always be ready to receive comments on their "appearance", the chief constraints being that the remarks should be favorable, delivered by someone with whom they are acquainted, and not interpretable as sarcasm. Implied, structurally, is that a woman must ever be ready to change ground, or, rather, have the ground changed for her, by virtue of being subject to becoming momentarily an object of approving attention, not - or not merely - a participant in it.

• In the incident as it is reported here, what do you think are the verbal and non-verbal aspects of the change of footing that Goffman talks about?

• This change in footing corresponds to a change in the frame that the President imposes on the events and that Helen Thomas is forced to accept. How would you characterize this change in frame?