Perspectives, Positioning, and Transpositioning |
ABSTRACT James Paul Gee remarks in his Introduction to Discourse Analysis, "When we speak or write we always take a particular perspective on what the "world" is like." The perspective we take often positions others in relation to us. We can also describe the ways we are positioned by others. In the view of cognitive linguists, for example Langacker, Lakoff, and Fauconnier, the concepts in our discourses result from the "mental spaces" or "mental models" of experiences that we store in our memory systems. These mental spaces are reflected in the ways in which we describe our perspective as a point of view, a position in a space. Most of the time we experience our world from our perspective. On occasions, we assume another person's perspective. This happens when we read a novel, go to the movies, or watch TV. In these instances, we are transported into these virtual worlds and given perspectives from which to view them. On rarer occasions, we assume another person's perspective and see the world through his or her eyes—a transposition. But, how would we know when someone takes the perspective of another person? As Gee notes, "When we speak or write we always take a particular perspective on what the "world" is like." Consequently, we can say that perspective is linguistically marked. |
When we speak or write we always take a particular perspective on what the "world" is like. This involves us in taking perspectives on what is "normal" and not; what is "acceptable" and not; what is "right" and not; what is "real" and not; what is the "way things are" and not; what is the "ways things ought to be" and not; what is "possible" and not; what "people like us" or "people like them" do and don't do; and so on and so forth, again through a nearly endless list. But these are all, too, perspectives on how we believe, wish, or act as if potential "social goods" are, or ought to be, distributed." (Gee 1999, 2.)
It is not possible to speak without assuming a perspective. Consider Langacker's example:
The path falls steeply into the valley.
The path climbs steeply out of the valley.
Although these sentences could be used to describe the same scene, we would hardly want to say that they express the same meaning. The difference between them has to do with perspective. In (3) the viewpoint is that of someone looking down into the valley, whereas in (4) it is that of someone looking up from the valley floor." Lee, Cognitive Linguistics, 2-3 See Langacker, Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, on "perspective."
Linguists in the tradition of Chomsky regard language as a rule-governed system independent of experience. For Cognitive Linguists language is governed by our experience of the world. For them, concepts are "mental spaces" or "mental models" of the world and, as such, are profoundly spatia and show us the world from a particular perspective..
"These examples [The fire went out. The sun came out.] illustrate the relevance of the notion of perspective ... to the process of conceptualization and coding. The apparently puzzling fact that out is sometimes associated with visibility and sometimes with invisibility can be accounted for by supposing that the two usages involve locating an observer in different parts of the image schema (figures 3.3 and 3.4)." Lee, Cognitive Linguistics, 2004. 33).
In the case of "the sun came out," the observer does not see the sun until it enters his visual horizon. In the case of "the fire went out," the observer sees the fire and then it goes "out" of his sight.
[Discourse Entails Perspective] [Discourse & Positioning] [Positions in Mental Spaces]
[Taking Another's Perspective] [Feeling Identified with Another]
The perspective we take often positions others in relation to us.
I was ahead of him in the race,
but I was behind him in school.
In their Positioning Theory: Moral Contexts of Intentional Action, Rom Harré and Luk van Langenhove argue that persons are “positioned” discursively by others and position themselves for others. For example, if I say to a professional carpenter than I am an amateur carpenter, I position myself below him in skill level. Conversely, if I showed him some shelves I had built and he said, “I’m afraid they look amateurish,” he places himself at a higher skill level than me. Harré and van Langenhove argue that positioning invariably reveals rights and obligations. For example: If I am an amateur carpenter I have no right to advertise myself as a professional carpenter. I am morally obliged to advertise myself as an unskilled woodworker and to set a lower fee for my services than a professional has the right to do.
[Discourse Entails Perspective] [Discourse & Positioning] [Positions in Mental Spaces]
[Taking Another's Perspective] [Feeling Identified with Another]
In the view of cognitive linguists, for example Langacker, Lakoff, and Fauconnier, the concepts in our discourses result from the "mental spaces" or "mental models" of experiences that we store in our memory systems. These mental spaces are reflected in the ways in which we describe our perspective as a point of view, a position in a space.
Mental spaces can be understood as images of the world in which we live. In these spaces persons and objects are perceived in relation to each other are linked together by space and time. We customarily arrange them synchronically in geographic frames (mental spaces) and diachronically in temporal frames. As an aggregate of spaces in our memory system they constitute our personal (hence virtual) view of the world in which we live and its history.
Our discourses are dominated by positioning:
- I’m a person who is outside the box
- I’m on top; you’re on the bottom
- I’m in front this time. Last time I was in the back.
- You’re above average I’m below average
- I belong to ESPN’s “insider”
- I’m left of you politically You’re right of me politically
He is the President of ___
He is the Vice President of ___
He is the of Director of ___
He is the Department Head of ___
He is the Assistant to the Head of ___
These positions, as Rom Harré and Luk van Langenhove argue, are very much related to the way in which we speak about our identities:
I am a professor (implies a position in relationship to students)
I am a student (implies a position in relationship to teachers)
I am a husband (implies a position in relationship to a wife)
I am a father (implies a position in relationship to children)
I am a programmer (implies a position in relationship to users)
I am a web designer (implies a position in relationship to users)
I am a gardener (implies a social/cultural position)
I am not a professional landscaper (implies an economic position)
I am a cook (implies a social/cultural position)
I am not a professional chef (implies an economic position)
I am an amateur carpenter (implies a position in relationship to professionals)
[Discourse Entails Perspective] [Discourse & Positioning] [Positions in Mental Spaces]
[Taking Another's Perspective] [Feeling Identified with Another]
Most of the time we experience our world from our perspective. On occasion, we assume another person's perspective. This happens when we read a novel, go to the movies, or watch TV. In these instances, we are transported into these virtual worlds and given perspectives from which to view them. On rarer occasions, we assume another person's perspective and see the world through his or her eyes. But, how would we know when someone takes the perspective of another person?
As Gee notes, "When we speak or write we always take a particular perspective on what the 'world' is like." Consider the sentence::
"He fell into a depression." (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, 32)
The sentence may seem to be offered as if the speaker perceived the other person from a position at a distance. However, the speaker says that the other person "fell" into a depression using a metaphor. The speaker could have stated: "He was depressed." Using a metaphor conveys an experience (fell) as a analogy to the other person's state of mind.
No doubt the metaphor is idiomatic and does not have the force of its original sense. Nonetheless, the idiom conveys an action rather than an abstract concept. When I read the sentence, I recognize the "action sequence" (change
of states of affairs) by recalling past experiences that fit the narrative structure. Perhaps I remember when I fell into a stream or a ditch or a well. As Lakoff points out:
" ... no metaphor can ever he comprehended or even adequately represented independently of its experiential basis." (italics his, 1980, 19)
To understand "He fell into a depression," requires the recall of past experiences, in particular their spatial dimensions.
We conceptualize our visual field as a 'container and conceptualize what we see as being inside it. Even the term "visual field" suggests this. The metaphor is a natural one that emerges from the fact that, when you look at some territory (land, floor space, etc.), your field of vision defines a boundary of the territory, namely, the part that you can see. Given that a bounded physical space is a CONTAINER and that our field of vision correlates with that bounded physical space, the metaphorical concept VISUAL FIELDS ARE CONTAINERS emerges naturally. (1980. 30)
The key components of the experience "fell into a depression" are: "falling" and "into." To employ the metaphor as an expression of a state of mind, I have to recall the experience of "falling." It differs from "sliding," "walking," "running," and any other number of activities. And I have to recall the experience of "into," which differs from "onto," "to," "in," and any number of the results of actions. "Falling into a depression" differs experientially from "sliding into a depression" or "falling onto a depression." Thus an identifiable pattern of experience is projected onto another person. I transfer my experience to him thus bridging the distance between us.
Normally, the "self figure" in configuring is expressed in an autobiographical terms (I fell into a depression). Normally, I map my story (remembered script of experiences) onto my experience of situations. However, I have the ability to transfer my perspective, that is, to switch the self and other figures imaginatively. This is an experience transfer. I take the other's position in the situation. What could provoke or evoke this transfer? Clearly, some sort of identification with the other's state is the condition of a transposition. The identification (recognized script) is then transferred by identifying with the other persons (taking his or her position in the situation). So, I put myself in the position of the other person ("he"). Under normal circumstances, I impose my perspective (values, line of sight, actions, etc.) upon another person to make sense of what is happening. At the same time, that imposition puts me in the other person's position. By imposing I transpose my experience.
The sentence, "He fell into a depression" might be a "weak" instance of transposition in as much as it could be a simple imposition of my perspective onto his. The result is that the perspective given in the sentence is from "his" point of view and the identification is probably minimal.
[Discourse Entails Perspective] [Discourse & Positioning] [Positions in Mental Spaces]
[Taking Another's Perspective] [Feeling Identified with Another]
feeling identified with another
The degree of identification with another person is heightened when a "transportation"—assuming imaginatively some-one else's perspective—occurs. It's easy to see how this happens in motion pictures. I lose consciousness, so to speak, lose my sense of my normal perspective (seeing) and take on the perspective given to me by the camera which is NOT mine. I'm transported by the medium and lured into the OTHER perspective. From that perspective, the world may still seem familiar. But not always. Things can get surreal. I may be attacked. Something may be thrown at me (3D effects are interesting in this regard). The impact of a "transportation" upon a "transposition" is that I get to feel what fits the OTHER perspective—for example watching a horror film, I feel scared I may jump up in my seat or turn away to avoid a weapon. In these cases, I identify with the other figure and experience the world through his or her perspective.
When we have been transported into the virtual world of a film or novel, we often experience powerful transpositions. These are noticeable because not only do we see the world in which we are transported from the perspective of another person who inhabits it, but we also feel what that persons feels. These feelings are sometimes expressed as we express them in the world we normally inhabit. We cry, we feel angry, we are frightened, and so on. It is not uncommon for the audiences of films to shout at villains who threaten the hero or heroine—a famous instance being the scene in Fatal Attraction when Alex (Glen Close) attempts to stab Beth (Ann Archer) just as Dan (Michael Douglas) appears with a pistol in his hand and audiences shout out loud, at least in one instance saying, "kill the bitch."
If the transposition is accompanied by an identification with the other—whatever the degree, then configuring occurs.
jjs
Notes:
. [(When we understand a sentence like "Inflation has gone up" as being true, we do the following:
1. We understand the situation by metaphorical projection in two ways:
- We view inflation as a SUBSTANCE (via an ontological metaphor).
- We view MORE as being oriented UP (via an orientational metaphor).
2. We understand the sentence in terms of the same two metaphors.
3. This allows us to fit our understanding of the sentence to our understanding of the situation.
Thus an understanding of truth in terms of metaphorical projection is not essentially different from an understanding of truth in terms of nonmetaphorical projection. The only difference is that metaphorical projection involves understanding one kind of thing in terms of another kind of thing. That is, metaphorical projection involves two different kinds of things, while nonmetaphorical projection involves only one kind. (Lakoff, 1980, 170-171)] ... 
. [(Susan Faludi reported this in her review of Fatal Attraction. (Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. New York: Anchor, 1992. )] ...
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last revised:
June 11, 2010
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