Ordinary Troubles

Ambiguity

Ambiguity emerges when participants of social interactions are, for a lesser or a longer time, in doubt about what is going on and about how they should define the situation. Therefore, an unambiguousness perplexity occurs for them. As a consequence, feelings of insecurity arise, and activities are undertaken only with hesitation. Often, ambiguity has to be cleared up by a specialist who can identify its reasons, for example, if an abrupt turnoff of the lights is caused by a power breakdown. Ambiguity has two forms: (1) what can happen in general (vagueness) and (2) which one of a number of definable possibilities happens (uncertainty). For instance, if abrupt silence occurs during a telephone conversation, the reason for it is vague for the caller; it could be that the reception is technically disturbed, that the phone partner is offended by something, that he or she has may have suffered a sudden heart attack or perhaps has accidentally hung up. However, such a situation and its ambiguity have to be cleared immediately, and the reason for the silence has to be discovered. This is because each of these possibilities requires different behaviors of the caller to meet the situation.

With transformations of the frame, when the proposed frame does not fit with the common activities, ambiguity occurs. Ambiguities can take place in what Goffman has conceptualized as keying (e.g., if it is dubious whether one hears the right phone ring or just a ring in the television) and in fabrications (e.g., a common skepticism about the real intentions of one's activities). Skepticism can occur with regard to the possibility that something is caused by a harmless prank. Such a suspicion [Page 632]can often be based on accidental events. Skepticism also can occur when biographic reasoned events, such as former encounters with a nodding acquaintance are forgotten, but the forgotten acquaintance welcomes one by one's personal name.

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