Dialogical Selves in Action: Movements Within and Between Frames in Work Meetings

In our article, we present an analysis of work meeting interactions based on Hubert Hermans’ dialogical self theory and Erving Goffman’s frame analysis. Goffman’s approach has similarities with positioning theory and discursive psychology, which have a theoretical link to the dialogical self theory. In our analysis of work meetings, we identified three different frames in which participants discussed the acquisition of a new online text messaging service for the firm for which they worked. These frames were financial, pragmatic–instrumental, and social, all of which constructed different perspectives of the technological object and its use in daily work. Finally, the theoretical and methodological differences of dialogical self theory and frame analysis are outlined. The contribution of this article is two-fold; it illustrates how dialogical self theory and frame analysis provides, first, complementary approaches to social interaction and, second, how they differ in their orientation to the study of social situations.