Lecture | Sociolinguistics & Discourse Studies Series
Positioning in contrast: insights from a contrastive discourse analysis of positioning practices in online contexts
- Date
- Monday 2 December 2024
- Time
- Series
- Sociolinguistics & Discourse Studies Series
- Location
-
Herta Mohr
Witte Singel 27A
2311 BG Leiden - Room
- 0.22
Abstract
The notion of positioning (Davies & Harré, 1990), which refers to the negotiation of identity in interaction, has become more relevant in recent years. In discourse analysis a focus has been placed on, for example, how self and other positioning contributes to marking inclusion and exclusion in interaction and political discourse (e. g. Weiser-Zurmühlen, 2021). While such effects have been shown for discourses in different languages, a comparison of positioning practices across languages and discourses remains an open question, although contrasting discourses has been shown to be a fruitful object for investigating discursive strategies. For this reason, I compare positioning across two language communities in a partially international discourse about reproductive rights in online contexts. Reproductive rights can be discussed both from an individual and collective perspective leading to tensions in publicly led online discussions. Because of this, an empirical focus are perspectival tensions between subjective and collective viewpoints, which are brought to light using perspectivization in a strategic way. In the talk, I will present my doctoral project and focus on preliminary findings concerning the exclusion of participants achieved by displaying perceived incongruence between two positions held by participants. This is accomplished by pointing to the incompatibility of stances in adversative constructions or indicating the use of generalisation and stereotypes with NPs. The aim is twofold: first, I show how viewpoint shifts are used for positioning in order to discredit others. Second, I identify how positioning acts differ in the German and Polish discourses based on systemic characteristics of both languages and the different socio-cultural contexts in which the discourses are embedded.
References:
Davies, B., & Harré, R. (1990). Positioning: The Discursive Production of Selves. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 20(1), 43–63.
Weiser-Zurmühlen, K. (2021). Vergemeinschaftung und Distinktion: Eine gesprächsanalytische Studie über Positionierungspraktiken in Diskussionen über TV-Serien. De Gruyter.