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POSITIONING identity life story positioning subject position Complete Term List

 

Dictionary Definition from Wordnet

1. (2) position -- (cause to be in an appropriate place, state, or relation) 2. (1) put, set, place, pose, position, lay -- (put into a certain place or abstract location; "Put your things here"; "Set the tray down"; "Set the dogs on the scent of the missing children"; "Place emphasis on a certain point")

 

 

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Working Definition:

Locating persons in a worldview (mental world) and characterizing them in relation to the other persons in it.

The location of persons or things relative to each other in a mental space with respect to the values socio-culturally attributed to those locations.

Disciplinary Definitions:

“a position is a complex cluster of generic personal attributes, structured in various ways, which impinges on the possibilities of interpersonal, intergroup and even intrapersonal action through some assignment of such rights, duties and obligations to an individual as are sustained by the cluster.”  (Harré & Langenhove, Positioning Theory, 1999, 1)

  A position in a conversation, then, is a metaphorical concept through reference to which a person's 'moral' and personal attributes as a speaker are compendiously collected. One can position oneself or be positioned as e.g., powerful or powerless, confident or apologetic, dominant or submissive, definitive or tentative, authorized or unauthorized, and so on. A 'position' can be specified by reference to how a speaker's contributions are bearable with respect to these and other polarities of character, and sometimes even of role. Positioned as dependent, one's cry of pain is hearable as a plea for help. But positioned as dominant, a similar cry can be heard as a protest or even as a reprimand. It can easily be seen that the social force of an action and the position of the actor and interactors mutually determine one another. Conver­sations have storylines and the positions people take in a conversation will be linked to these storylines. Someone can be seen as acting like a teacher in the way his/her talk takes on a familiar form: the storyline of instruction, of the goings-on in the classroom. Living out in one's speech and actions one of the pedagogical storylines involves adopting such and such a position, for example having certain obligations to the students, and at the same time it makes one's sayings and doings relatively determinate as social acts of instruc­tion, correction, reprimand, congratulation and so on. [source: probably Harré & Langenhove]

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