ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 starts with a brief history view of Positioning Theory and explains key terms, including positioning, position, speech-act, storyline, duties, rights and moral orders. Harré and van Langehove (1999) discuss two key elements: position and positioning. Between position and positioning, we can use Positioning Theory to understand what is going on between people. By looking at personal pronouns such as ‘you’ or ‘we’ in the transcript, it is possible to determine what is happening in that environment at that moment. Hopefully, once you have seen Redman’s vodcast (Rodrigues, 2016), read van Langehove and Harré (1999) and finished this chapter, you will understand the links between positions (rights and duties), speech-acts and storylines.
