This book is about Positioning Theory (Davies & Harré, 1990) and its potential applications in bilingual and multilingual contexts involving teachers, learners, speakers, and users of a second/foreign or additional language. By using Positioning Theory as a theoretical lens and analytical approach, the author illustrates how various social and poststructural concepts in applied linguistics and language teacher education, including identity, agency, language socialization, classroom participation, and intercultural communication, can be investigated and better understood. The book adds a new perspective to the growing body of multidisciplinary literature in the areas of L2 teacher education and classroom learning, and includes step-by-step guidelines for positioning analysis, insights and implications for classroom practice, as well as suggested directions for future research. It will be of particular interest to language teachers and teacher educators, as well as students and scholars of applied linguistics more broadly.

In this book, Rom Harre give a state of the art overview of positioning theory via contributions from some of the world's leading experts in the field.

This book offers a critical reflection on interpersonal positioning across both large- and small-scale contexts and highlights the multi-faceted nature of intercultural communication in today’s global world. The volume establishes positioning primarily as the negotiation of interpersonal relationships, and draws on concepts from across disciplines by way of reappraisal before applying them to two specific domains: MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) and private ELF couple interaction. While acknowledging and showcasing the unique features of positioning in these two contexts, Klötzl and Swoboda point to their commonalities by looking at how language and specifically English is used as a communicative resource in lingua franca situations. The book also identifies new directions for future methodological innovations in that it demonstrates how the same interaction can be looked at in methodologically-different ways and how the authors’ own positions projected on to such interaction create an integrated tri-partite perspective on the two domains. Shedding light on interpersonal positioning in different contexts and in turn on global communication more generally, this book will be of particular interest to students and researchers in discourse analysis, pragmatics, computer-mediated communication, sociolinguistics, and applied linguistics.

This volume examines the agency of second/foreign language teachers in diverse geographical contexts and in both K-12 and adult education. It offers new understandings and conceptualizations of second/foreign language teacher agency through a variety of types of empirical data. It also demonstrates the use of different methodologies or analytic tools to study the multidimensional, dynamic and complex nature of second/foreign language teacher agency. The chapters draw on a range of theories and approaches to language teacher agency (including ecological theory, positioning theory, complexity theory and actor-network theory) that expand our understanding of the concept, while at the same time presenting various analytic approaches such as discourse studies and narrative inquiry. The chapters also analyze the connection of agency to other relevant topics, such as teacher identity, emotions, positioning and autonomy.

This handbook is the first of its kind to explore Positioning Theory. Taking inspiration from the groundwork set by Rom Harré and collaborators such as Bronwyn Davies, Fathali Moghaddam, Luk Van Langenhove, and others the book explores the emergence, historical context, and disciplinary applications of Positioning Theory and its basic precepts as a social psychological theory. This volume encompasses over 20 chapters across four sections, assimilating cross-disciplinary insights that try to understand the theoretical underpinnings, methodological applications, and contemporary relevance of Positioning Theory. Part 1 explores the movement of scholarly figures and their numerous works on the subject. It discusses the foundational origins and the historical contexts of the existing theories on positioning and new directions for scholarship. Part 2 examines the methodological and narrative investigations used for data analysis in positioning research, navigating through the epistemological orientations and theoretical landscapes of Positioning Theory. Part 3 explores numerous applications across disciplines to consider the reach and influence of positioning within and across multiple disciplines. Lastly, the authors contemplate the future directions for Positioning Theory. Featuring researchers from leading research institutions from across the globe, the book is important reading for scholars interested in positioning and Positioning Theory. We recommend this handbook for graduate-level courses in social psychology, communication, discourse studies and related disciplines.

This book provides a wide-ranging treatment of the major issues in applied linguistics.

This volume focuses on relations between the self and other individuals, the self and groups, and the self and context. Leading scholars in the field of positioning theory present the newest developments from this field on human social relations. The discussion is international, multidisciplinary, and multi-method, aiming to achieve a more dynamic and powerful account of human social relations, and to break disciplinary boundaries. Four features in this work are prominent. The book is culturally oriented and international. There is a push to move across disciplines, particularly across psychology and linguistics, and psychology and microsociology. There is a focus on language and social construction of the world through discourse. Finally, the book represents a multi-method approach that reflects discursive methods.