Positioning Theory

Positioning theory can be traced to several sources from within the disciplines of marketing, social psychology, and linguistics. Within the field of marketing, positioning refers to the strategic use of communication to position products in the marketplace. Social psychologists use positioning to illustrate how individuals have multiple, fluid positions and how positions can and do change. From a similar vantage point, linguists pinpoint the rhetorical and linguistic means by which individuals position themselves and continually negotiate their positions. One of the first scholars to illustrate the workings of positioning theory was psychologist Wendy Hollway, who demonstrated how people take up and negotiate their gender-related places in conversations.

Social psychologists Jonathan Potter and Margaret Wetherall, psychologists Rom Harre and Bronwyn Davies, and sociologist Luk van Langenhove are most often seen as the founders of positioning theory. They share a social-constructionist approach to how communication shapes identity. In particular, their interest lies in how positioning takes place in naturally occurring conversations such as, but not limited to, talk among friends, family members, or colleagues. Positioning theorists find inspiration in linguist John Austin's speech act theory and especially in the concept of illocutionary speech acts—words that by their very [Page 765]utterance embody an act such as “I hereby pronounce you husband and wife.” Positioning theorists note that conversations are structured speech events that are created by the joint participation of all participants. This point of juncture between social psychology and linguistics has led positioning theorists to also label the approach psycho-socio-linguistics or discursive psychology.

In addition to their social-constructionist approach to communication, positioning theorists also have in common a critique of Erving Goffman's role theory. To them, the concept of position better captures the dynamic aspects of multiply intersecting positions than does the term role. Yet they also make use of the notion of subject positions, which they recognize as somewhat similar to roles. To positioning theorists, communicators are participants in conversations and simultaneously audience members, or observers, who view situations based on how they imagine positioning themselves in that situation. Communicators who have expectations that they themselves will someday become a teacher, for instance, will view the position of teacher differently than those who expect that they will never take up that position. For positioning theorists, cultural categories such as female-male, teacher-student, mother-daughter, or doctor-patient are learned categories that also serve as forms of expression in language.

Positioning is displayed simultaneously at different conversational levels: from the grammatical (micro) level, to the interactional (meso) level, and onto the macrolevel of discourse. Although focusing on the interactional (meso) level of conversation, theorists distinguish between different modes of positioning. The most basic distinction is that between first and second order positioning or interactive and reflexive positioning. First order (interactional) positioning refers to the ways in which people locate themselves and others in conversation. Second order (reflexive) positioning occurs when the recipient challenges or redefines the positioning intended by the speaker.

Davies and Harre illustrate these conversational levels and positionings in an example of two academics (Sano and Enfermada) who attend a conference together when one of them (Enfermada) falls ill. The case begins when Sano says, “I am sorry to have dragged you all this way when you are not well.” Enfermada responds, “You didn't drag me; I chose to come.” At the grammatical (micro) level we note, for instance, the use of the first person pronoun I by both of the participants. At the interactional level, we note how Sano's first order positioning is challenged by Enfermada's second order-reflexive positioning. And at the macrolevel, we note how Enfermada positions Sano as a male chauvinist. The case highlights another important feature; namely, that having assumed a particular position in a storyline, communicators will tend to view the world from that position, also known by Wetherall and Potter as interpretative repertoire. Although Sano views his speech act as an act of commiseration and hers as overly sensitive, Enfermada views Sano's speech as an act of condescension and her own as an act of empowerment.

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