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13.12.202412.2024с 01.01.2024
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Journal section "Theoretical and methodological approaches to the research into social space"

The Concept of “Lifeworld” in Symbolic Interactionism, Phenomenology and Pragmatics of Communicative Action. Part II

Andrianova E.V., Davydenko V.A., Khudyakova Y.

Volume 10, Issue 3, 2024

Andrianova E.V., Davydenko V.A., Khudyakova Yu. (2024). The Concept of “Lifeworld” in Symbolic Interactionism, Phenomenology and Pragmatics of Communicative Action. Part II. Social area, 10 (3). DOI: 10.15838/sa.2024.3.43.3 URL: http://socialarea-journal.ru/article/30090?_lang=en

DOI: 10.15838/sa.2024.3.43.3

Abstract   |   Authors   |   References
The second part of the article focuses on the key parameters of the definition of “lifeworld” from the perspective of symbolic interactionism, phenomenology and communicative action as basic components of interpretive contemporary sociological theories. The applied complex approach points to many contradictory moments of “rationalization” and “non-rationalization” of life worlds, as well as its segmentation along the axes of “individualism” – “collectivism”, which form a special interpretative framework. This approach formulates a scientific problem, which consists in the need to adequately reflect the contradictory complexities in identifying the very theoretical and practical subject of research, which is associated with the sphere of intersubjectivity of actors cooperating with each other in interrelated perspectives and mutual roles within the same communicative space. The logic of the task at hand is as follows: the article shows that in the history of sociology, the “lifeworld” is first presented in Edmund Husserl’s terms, unfolded by Erving Goffman and Alfred Schütz in its initial formulation as “unproblematic”, as a self-evident “background of human actions”, which, however, in frame-analysis leads in the end to a qualitatively content-rich scientific concept that is verified on various grounds. To prove the validity of this thesis, the definition of “lifeworld” is initially considered from the point of view of the philosophical approach of Edmund Husserl as the founder of phenomenology. In the development of the theme in sociology, its interpretations in the phenomenology of everyday life-world structures are realized. We have operationalized the main components of Erving Goffman’s lifeworld, in particular presenting a table of his basic terminology as reinterpreted by Michael Hill. For Alfred Schütz, the lifeworld is a two-dimensional definition: on the one hand, it is the natural environment of everyday life of living agents, actors or subjects, who in their subject definitions and behavioral patterns are based on natural attitudes that motivate actions described in temporal, spatial and social aspects

Keywords

life world, symbolic interactionism, phenomenology, theories of communicative action