ABSTRACT
This essay contends that the communication of personhood is a transitory, sometimes durable interactional accomplishment that creatively invokes cultural meaning systems. A cultural pragmatic perspective that integrates communicational and cultural dynamics is discussed, developed through the concept of positioning, and demonstrated with several instances of interactive talk. The demonstration yields some of the interactional workings of one cultural model of personhood that is prominent in America today, a deeply structured system of values referred to here as a code of dignity. This coding of communication is comparatively analyzed, thus drawing attention to its tendency to supplant others. Implications of the approach and findings are discussed.
