ABSTRACT
Every person lives in a world of social encounters, involving him in either face-to-face or mediated contacts 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 non-verbal acts by which he expresses his view of the situation and through this his evaluation of the participants, especially himself. Regardless of whether the person intends to take a line, he will find that he has done so in effect. The other participants will assume that he has more or less wilfully taken a stand.
