In every discipline, humanistic or scientific, the familiar common
sense world of everyday life is a matter of abiding interest. In the social
sciences, and in sociology particularly, it is a matter of essential
preoccupation. It makes up sociology's problematic subject matter, enters
the very constitution of the sociological attitude, and exercises an odd and
obstinate sovereignty over sociologists' claims to adequate explanation.
Despite the topic's centrality, an immense literature contains little data
and few methods with which the essential features of socially recognied
!familiar scenes! may be detected and related to dimensions of social
organiation. "lthough sociologists take socially structured scenes of
everyday life as a point of departure they rarely see,' as a task of
sociological inquiry in its own right, the general question of how any such
common sense world is possible. Instead, the possibility of the everyday
world is either settled by theoretical representation or merely assumed. "s
a topic and methodological ground for sociological inquiries, the
definition of the common sense world of everyday life, though it is
appropriately a project of sociological inquiry, has been neglected. #y
purposes in this paper are to demonstrate the essential relevance, to
sociological inquiries, of a concern for common sense activities as a topic
of inquiry in its own right and, by reporting a series of studies, to urge its
Making commonplace scenes visible
In accounting for the stable features of everyday activities soci $
ologists commonly select familiar settings such as familial households or
work places and ask for the variables that contribute to their stable
features. %ust as commonly, one set
of considerations are unexamined&
the socially standardied and
standardiing, !seen but
unnoticed,! expected, background
features of everyday scenes. 'he
member of the society uses
background expectancies as a
scheme of interpretation. (ith their
use actual appearances are for him
recogniable and intelligible as the appearances$of$familiar$events.
Demonstrably he is responsive to this background,
'he work of "lfred )chut, cited in footnote *, is a magnificent exception.
+eaders who are acquainted with his writings will recognie how
heavily this paper is indebted to him. 37
while at the same time he is at a loss to tell us specifically of
what the expectancies consist. (hen we ask him about them
he has little or nothing to say.
,or these background expectancies to come into view one
must either be a stranger to the !life as usual! character of
everyday scenes, or become estranged from them. "s "lfred
)chut pointed out, a !special motive! is required to make
them problematic. In the sociologists' case this !special
motive! consists in the programmatic task of treating a
societal member's practical
circumstances, which include from the
member's point of view the morally
necessary character of many of its
background features, as matters of
theoretic interest. 'he seen but unnoticed
backgrounds of everyday activities are
made visible and are described from a
perspective in which persons live out the
lives they do, have the children they do,
feel the feelings, think the thoughts, enter
the relationships they do, all in order to
permit the sociologist to solve his
theoretical problems.
"lmost alone among sociological
theorists, the late "lfred )chut, in a
series of classical studies
of the
constitutive phenomenology of the world
of everyday life, described many of these
seen but unnoticed background
expectancies. -e called them the !attitude
of daily life.! -e referred to their scenic attributions as the world known in
common and taken for granted.! )chut' fundamental work makes it
possible to pursue further the tasks of clarifying their nature and operation,
of relating them to the processes of concerted actions, and assigning them
their place in an empirically imaginable society.
'he studies reported in this paper attempt to detect some expectancies
that lend commonplace scenes their familiar, life$asusual character, and to
relate these to the stable social structures of everyday activities.
.rocedurally it is my preference to start with familiar scenes and ask what
can be done to make trouble. 'he operations that one would have to
perform in order to multiply the senseless features of perceived
environments/ to produce and
"lfred )chut, Der )innhafte "ufbau Der )oiaien Welt 0(ein& 1erlag von %ulius
)pringer, 234*5/ Collected Papers I: The Problem of Social Reality, ed. #aurice
6atanson 0'he -ague& #artinus 6ijhoff, 237*5/ Collected Papers II: Studies in
Social Theory, ed. "rvid 8roderson 0'he -ague& #artinus Niihoff, 230495/ Collected
Papers III: Studies in Phenomenological Philosophy, ed. I. )chut 0'he -ague&
#artinus 6ijhoff, 23775.
sustain bewilderment, consternation, and confusion/ to produce
the socially structured affects of anxiety, shame, guilt, and indignation/ and
to produce disorganied interaction should tell us something about how the
structures of everyday activities are ordinarily and routinely produced and
" word of reservation. Despite their procedural emphasis, my studies are
not properly speaking experimental. 'hey are demonstrations, designed, in
-erbert )piegelberg's phrase, as !aids to a sluggish imagination.! I have
found that they produce reflections through which the strangeness of an
obstinately familiar world can be detected.
Some essential features of common understandings
1arious considerations dictate that common understandings cannot
possibly consist of a measured amount of shared agreement among persons
on certain topics. :ven if the topics are limited in number and scope and
every practical difficulty of assessment is forgiven, the notion that we are
dealing with an amount of shared agreement remains essentially incorrect.
'his may be demonstrated as follows.
)tudents were asked to report common conversations by writing on the
left side of a sheet what the parties actually said and on the right side what
they and their partners understood that they were talking about. " student
reported the following colloquy between himself and his wife.
-;)8"6D& Dana succeeded in putting a penny in a parking meter
today without being picked up.
'his afternoon as I was bringing Dana, our four$year$old son, home from
the nursery school, he succeeded in reaching high enough to put a penny in
a parking meter when we parked in a meter parking one, whereas before he
has always had to be picked up to reach that high.
(I ,:&
<bversely, a knowledge of how the structures of everyday activities are
routinely produced should permit us to tell how we might proceed for the effective production
of desired disturbances. 39
Did you take him to )ince he put a penny in a meter
the record store= that means that you stopped
while he was with you. I know that you stopped
at the record store either on the way to
get him or on the way back. (as it on the way
back, so that he (> with you or did you stop there
on the way to get him and somewhere else on
the way back=
-;)8"6D& 6<, t o the shoe
repair shop.
(I,:& (hat for=
-;)8"6D& I got some new
shoe laces for my shoes.
(I,:& ?our loafers need
new heels badly.
6o, I stopped at the record store on the way to get him and stopped at the
shoe repair shop on the way home when he was with me.
I know of one reason why you might have stopped at the
shoe repair shop. (hy did you in fact=
"s you will remember I broke a shoe lace on one of my brown oxfords the
other day so I stopped to get some new laces.
)omething else you could have gotten that I was thinking of. ?ou could
have taken in your black loafers which need
heels badly. ?ou'd better get them taken care of pretty soon.
"n examination of the colloquy reveals the following. 0 a 5 'here
were many matters that the partners understood they were talking about
that they did not mention. 0b5 #any matters that the partners understood
was left unspoken. 0 c5 #any matters were understood through a process of
attending to the temporal series of utterances as documentary evidences
of a developing conversation rather than as a string of terms. 0 d5 #atters
that the two understood in common were understood only in and through
a course of understanding work that consisted of treating an actual
linguistic event as !the document of,! as !pointing to,! as standing on
about. 'he underlying pattern was not only derived from a course of
individual documentary evidences but the documentary evidences in their
turn were interpreted on the basis of !what was known! and anticipatorily
knowable about the underlying patterns.
:ach was used to elaborate the
other. (e) In attending to the utterances as events$in$the$conversation
each party made references to the biography and prospects of the present
interaction which each used and attributed to the other as a common
scheme of interpretation and expression. 0 f 5 :ach waited for
something more to be said in order to hear what had previously been talked
about, and each seemed willing to wait.
@ommon understandings would consist of a measured amount of shared
agreement if the common understandings consisted of events coordinated
with the successive positions of the hands of the clock, i.e., of events in
standard time. 'he foregoing results, because they deal with the exchanges
of the colloquy as events$ina$conversation, urge that one more time
parameter, at least, is required& the role of time as it is constitutive of !the
matter talked about! as a developing and developed event over the course
of action that produced it, as both the process and product were known
from ithin this development by both parties, each for himself as well as
on behalf of the other.
'he colloquy reveals additional features. 025 #any of its expressions
are such that their sense cannot be decided by an auditor unless he knows
or assumes something about the biography and the purposes of the
speaker, the circumstances of the utterance, the previous course of the
conversation, or the particular relationship of actual or potential
interaction that exists between user and auditor. 'he expressions do not
have a sense that remains identical through the changing occasions of their
use. 0 *5 'he events that were talked about were specifically vague. 6ot
only do they not
Aarl #annheim, in his essay !<n the Interpretation of '(eltanschauung'! 0 in !ssays
on the Sociology of "noledge, trans. and ed. .aul Aecskemeti B6ew ?ork& <xford
;niversity .ress, 23>*2, pp. 44$C45, referred to this work as the !documentary method of
interpretation.! Its features are detailed in @hapter 'hree. 41
frame a clearly restricted set of possible determinations but the depicted
events include as their essentially intended and sanctioned features an
accompanying !fringe! of determinations that are open with respect to
internal relationships, relationships to other events, and relationships to
retrospective and prospective possibilities. 045 ,or the sensible character of
an expression, upon its occurrence each of the conversationalists as auditor
of his own as well as the other's productions had to assume as of any
present accomplished point in the exchange that by waiting for what he or
the other person might have said at a later time the present significance of
what had already been said would have been clarified. 'hus many
expressions had the property of being progressively realied and realiable
through the further course of the conversation. 09 5 It hardly needs to be
pointed out that the sense of the expressions depended upon where the
expression occurred in serial order, the expressive character of the terms
that comprised it, and the importance to the conversationalists of the events
'hese properties of common understandings stand in contrast to the
features they would have if we disregarded their temporally constituted
character and treated them instead as precoded entries on a memory drum,
to be consulted as a definite set of alternative meanings from among which
one was to select, under predecided conditions that specified in which of
some set of alternative ways one was to understand the situation upon the
occasion that the necessity for a decision arose. 'he latter properties are
those of strict rational discourse as these are idealied in the rules that de$
fine an adequate logical proof.
,or the purposes of conducting their e#eryday affairs persons refuse
to permit each other to understand !what they are really talking about! in
this way. 'he anticipation that persons ill understand, the occasionality of
expressions, the specific vagueness of references, the retrospective$
prospective sense of a present occurrence, waiting for something later in
order to see what was meant before, are sanctioned properties of common
discourse. 'hey furnish a background of seen but unnoticed features of
common discourse whereby actual utterances are recognied as events of
common, reasonable, understandable, plain talk. .ersons require these
properties of discourse as conditions under which they are them$
selves entitled and entitle others to claim that they know what
they are talking about, and that what they are saying is understandable
and ought to be understood. In short, their seen but unnoticed
presence is used to entitle persons to conduct their common conversational
affairs without interference. Departures from such usages call forth
immediate attempts to restore a right state of affairs.
'he sanctioned character of these properties is demonstrable as follows.
)tudents were instructed to engage an acquaintance or a friend in an
ordinary conversation and, without indicating that what the experimenter
was asking was in any way unusual, to insist that the person clarify the
sense of his commonplace remarks. 'wenty$three students reported twenty$
five instances of such encounters. 'he following are typical excerpts from
their accounts.
'he subject was telling the experimenter, a member of the subject's car
pool, about having had a flat tire while going to work the previous day.
0 ) 5 I had a flat tire.
0:5 (hat do you mean, you had a flat tire=
)he appeared momentarily stunned. 'hen she answered in a
hostile way& !(hat do you mean, '(hat do you mean=' " flat tire
is a flat tire. 'hat is what I meant. 6othing special. (hat a cray questionD!
0 )5 -i, +ay. -ow is your girl friend feeling=
0:5 (hat do you mean, !-ow is she feeling=! Do you mean
physical or mental=
0 ) 5 I mean how is she feeling= (hat's the matter with you=
0-e looked peeved. 5
0:5 6othing. %ust explain a little clearer what do you mean=
0 )5 )kip it. -ow are your #ed )chool applications coming= 0:5 (hat
do you mean, !-ow are they=!
0 )5 ?ou know what I mean. 0:5 I really don't.
0 ) 5 (hat's the matter with you= "re you sick=
!<n ,riday night my husband and I were watching television.
#y husband remarked that he was tired. I asked, '-ow are you tired=
.hysically, mentally, or just bored='!
0 )5 I don't know, I guess physically, mainly.
0:5 ?ou mean that your muscles ache or your bones=
0 )5 I guess so. Don't be so technical.
$%fter more atching&
0)5 "ll these old movies have the same kind of old iron bedstead in
0:5 (hat do you mean= Do you mean all old movies, or some of them,
or just the ones you have seen=
0 )5 (hat's the matter with you= ?ou know what I mean. 0:5 I wish
you would be more specific.
0 )5 ?ou know what I meanD Drop deadD
During a conversation 0with the :' s female fiancee5 the E
questioned the meaning of various words used by the subject . . .
,or the first minute and a half the subject responded to the questions
as if they were legitimate inquiries. 'hen she responded with !(hy
are you asking me those questions=! and repeated this two or three
times after each question. )he became nervous and jittery, her face
and hand movements . . . uncontrolled. )he appeared bewildered and
complained that I was making her nervous and demanded that I !)top
it!. . . . 'he subject picked up a magaine and covered her face. )he
put down the magaine and pretended to be engrossed. (hen asked
why she was looking at the magaine she closed her mouth and
refused any further remarks.
#y friend said to me, !-urry or we will be late.! I asked him what did
reference. 'here was a look of perplexity and cynicism on his face.
!(hy are you asking me such silly questions= )urely I don't have to
explain such a statement. (hat is wrong with you today= (hy should I
have to stop to analye such a statement= :veryone under stands my
statements and you should be no exceptionD!
'he victim waved his hand cheerily.
0 ) 5 -ow are you=
0:5 -ow am I in regard to what= #y health, my finances, my school
work, my peace of mind, my E . . =
0 ) 5. 0 +ed in the face and suddenly out of control. 5 FookD I was just
trying to be polite. ,rankly, I don't give a damn how you are.
#y friend and I were talking about a man whose overbearing attitude
annoyed us. #y friend expressed his feeling.
0 ) 5 I'm sick of him.
0:5 (ould you explain what is wrong with you that you are sick=
0 ) 5 "re you kidding me= ?ou know what I mean.
0:5 .lease explain your ailment.
0)5 0 -e listened to me with a puled look. 5 (hat came over you= (e
never talk this way, do we=
ackground understandings and !ade"uate!
recognition of commonplace events
(hat kinds of expectancies make up a !seen but unnoticed! background
of common understandings, and how are they related to persons'
recognition of stable courses of interpersonal transactions= )ome
information can be obtained if we first ask how a person will look at an
ordinary and familiar scene and what will he see in it if we require of him
that he do no more than look at it as something that for him it !obviously!
and !really! is not.
;ndergraduate students were assigned the task of spending from fifteen
minutes to an hour in their homes viewing its activities while assuming that
they were boarders in the household. 'hey were instructed not to act out the
assumption. 'hirty$three students reported their experiences.
In their written reports students !behavioried! the household scenes.
-ere is an excerpt from one account to illustrate my meaning.
" short, stout man entered the house, kissed me on the cheek and
asked, !-ow was school=! I answered politely. -e walked into the
kitchen, kissed the younger of the two women, and said hello to the
other. 'he younger woman asked me, !(hat do you want for dinner,
honey=! I answered, !6othing.! )he shrugged her shoulders and said
no more. 'he older woman shuffled around the kitchen muttering.
'he man washed his hands, sat down at the table, and picked up the
paper. -e read until the two women had finished putting the food on
the table. 'he three sat down. 'hey exchanged idle chatter about the
day's events. 'he older woman said something in a foreign language
which made the others laugh.
.ersons, relationships, and activities were described without respect for
their history, for the place of the scene in a set of developing life
circumstances, or for the scenes as texture of relevant events for the parties
themselves. +eferences to motives, propriety, subjectivity generally, and
the socially standardied character of the events were omitted. Descriptions
might be thought of as those of a keyhole observer who puts aside much of
what he knows in common with subjects about the scenes he is looking at,
as if the writer had witnessed the scenes under a mild amnesia for his com$
mon sense knowledge of social structures.
)tudents were surprised to see the ways in which members' treatments
of each other were personal. 'he business of one was treated as the
business of the others. " person being criticied was unable to stand on
dignity and was prevented by the others from taking offense. <ne student
reported her surprise at how freely she had the run of the house. Displays of
conduct and feeling occurred without apparent concern for the management
of impressions. 'able manners were bad, and family members showed
46 S#$%&ES &' E#(')ME#()%)*)+,
each other little politeness. "n early casualty in the scene was the
family news of the day which turned into trivial talk.
)tudents reported that this way of looking was difficult to sus $
tain. ,amiliar objectsGpersons obviously, but furniture and room
arrangements as wellGresisted students' efforts to think of themselves as
strangers. #any became uncomfortably aware of how habitual movements
were being made/ of ho one was handling the silverware, or ho one
opened a door or greeted another member. #any reported that the attitude
was difficult to sustain because with it quarreling, bickering, and hostile
motivations became discomfitingly visible. ,requently an account
that recited newly visible troubles was accompanied by the student's
assertion that his account of family problems was not a !true! picture/ the
family was really a very happy one. )everal students reported a mildly
oppressive feeling of !conforming to a part.! )everal students attempted to
formulate the !real me! as activities governed by rules of con duct
but gave it up as a bad job. 'hey found it more convincing to think of
themselves in !usual! circumstances as !being one's real self.! 6evertheless
one student was intrigued with how deliberately and successfully he could
predict the other's responses to his actions. -e was not troubled by
this feeling.
#any accounts reported a variation on the theme& !I was glad
when the hour was up and I could return to the real me.!
)tudents were convinced that the view from the boarder's atti $
tude was not their real home environment. 'he boarder's attitude produced
appearances which they discounted as interesting incongruities of little and
misleading practical import. -ow had the familiar ways of looking at their
home environments been altered= -ow did their looking differ from usual=
)everal contrasts to the !usual! and !required! way of looking are
detectable from their accounts. 025 In looking at their homes as boarders
they replaced the mutually recognied texture of events with a rule of
interpretation which required that this mutual texture be temporarily
disregarded. 0*5 'he mutually recognied texture was brought under the
jurisdiction of the new attitude as a definition of the essential structures of
this texture. 045 'his was done by engaging in interaction with others with
an attitude whose nature and purpose only the user knew about, that
remained undisclosed, that could be either adopted or put aside at a time of
the 47
user's own choosing, and was a matter of willful election. 095 'he attitude
as an intention was sustained as a matter of personal and willed compliance
with an explicit and single rule, 0>5 in which, like a game, the goal of the
intention was identical with looking at things under the auspices of the
single rule itself. 075 "bove all, looking was not bound by any necessity for
gearing one's interests within the attitude to the actions of others. 'hese
were the matters that students found strange.
(hen students used these background expectancies not only as ways of
looking at familial scenes but as grounds for acting in them, the scenes
exploded with the bewilderment and anger of family members.
In another procedure students were asked to spend from fifteen minutes
to an hour in their homes imagining that they were boarders and acting out
this assumption. 'hey were instructed to conduct themselves in a
circumspect and polite fashion. 'hey were to avoid getting personal, to use
formal address, to speak only when spoken to.
In nine of forty$nine cases students either refused to do the assignment
0five cases5 or the try was !unsuccessful! 0 four cases5. ,our of the !no try!
students said they were afraid to do it/ a fifth said she preferred to avoid the
risk of exciting her mother who had a heart condition. In two of the
!unsuccessful! cases the family treated it as a joke from the beginning and
refused despite the continuing actions of the student to change. " third
family took the view that something undisclosed was the matter, but what it
might be was of no concern to them. In the fourth family the father and
mother remarked that the daughter was being !extra nice! and undoubtedly
wanted something that she would shortly reveal.
In the remaining four$fifths of the cases family members were
stupefied. 'hey vigorously sought to make the strange actions intelligible
and to restore the situation to normal appearances. +eports were filled with
accounts of astonishment, bewilderment, shock, anxiety, embarrassment,
and anger, and with charges by various family members that the student
was mean, inconsiderate, selfish, nasty, or impolite. ,amily members
demanded explanations& (hat's the matter= (hat's gotten into you= Did
you get fired= "re you sick= (hat are you being so superior about= (hy
are you mad= "re you out of your mind or are you just stupid= <ne
student acutely embarrassed his mother in front of her friends by
asking if she minded if he had a snack from the refrigerator. !#ind
if you have a little snack= ?ou've been eating little snacks around
here for years without asking me. (hat's gotten into you=! <ne mother,
infuriated when her daughter spoke to her only when she was spoken to,
began to shriek in angry denunciation of the daughter for her disrespect and
insubordination and refused to be calmed by the student's sister. " father
berated his daughter for being insufficiently concerned for the welfare of
others and of acting like a spoiled child.
<ccasionally family members would first treat the student's action
as a cue for a joint comedy routine which was soon replaced by irritation
and exasperated anger at the student for not knowing when enough
was enough. ,amily members mocked the !politeness! of the students
G!@ertainly #r. -erbergrGor charged the student with acting like a wise
guy and generally reproved the !politeness! with sarcasm.
:xplanations were sought in previous, understandable motives of the
student& the student was !working too hard! in school/ the student was !ill!/
there had been !another fight! with a fiancee. (hen offered explanations
by family members went unacknowledged, there followed withdrawal by
the offended member, attempted isolation of the culprit, retaliation, and
denunciation. !Don't bother with him, he's in one of his moods again!/ !.ay
no attention but just wait until he asks me for something!/ !?ou're cutting
me, okay I'll cut you and then some!/ !(hy must you always create friction
in our family harmony=! #any accounts reported versions of the following
confrontation. " father followed his son into the bedroom. !?our #other is
right. ?ou don't look well and you're not talking sense. ?ou had better get
another job that doesn't require such late hours.! 'o this the student replied
that he appreciated the consideration, but that he felt fine and only wanted a
little privacy. 'he father responded in a high rage, !I don't want any more
of that out of you and if you can't treat your mother decently you'd better
move outD!
'here were no cases in which the situation was not restorable upon the
student's explanation. 6evertheless, for the most part family members were
not amused and only rarely did they find the experience instructive as the
student argued that it was supposed 49
to have been. "fter hearing the explanation a sister replied coldly on behalf
of a family of four, !.lease, no more of these experiments. (e're not rats,
you know.! <ccasionally an explanation was accepted but still it added
offense. In several cases students reported that the explanations left them,
their families, or both wondering how much of what the student had said
was !in character! and how much the student !really meant.!
)tudents found the assignment difficult to complete. 8ut in contrast
with on$lookers' accounts students were likely to report that difficulties
consisted in not being treated as if they were in the role that they were
attempting to play, and of being confronted with situations but not knowing
how a boarder would respond.
'here were several entirely unexpected findings. 025 "lthough many
students reported extensive rehearsals in imagination, very few mentioned
anticipatory fears or embarrassment. 0*5 <n the other hand, although
unanticipated and nasty developments frequently occurred, in only one case
did a student report serious regrets. 045 1ery few students reported heartfelt
relief when the hour was over. 'hey were much more likely to report partial
relief. 'hey frequently reported that in response to the anger of others they
became angry in return and slipped easily into subjectively recogniable
feelings and actions.
In contrast to the reports of the on$looking !boarders! very few reports
!behavioried! the scene.
ackground understandings and social affects
Despite the interest in social affects that prevails in the social
sciences, and despite the extensive concern that clinical psychiatry pays
them, surprisingly little has been written on the socially structured
conditions for their production. 'he role that a background of common
understandings plays in their production, control, and recognition is,
however, almost terra incognita' 'his lack of attention from experimental
investigators is all the more remarkable if one considers that it is precisely
this relationship that persons are concerned with in their common sense
portrayals of how to conduct one's daily affairs so as to solicit enthusiasm
and friendliness or avoid anxiety, guilt, shame, or boredom. 'he
relationship between the common understandings and social affects may be