Positioning and Autobiography: Telling your Life

Book Title: 
Biographical Research Methods
Author(s): 
Editor(s): 
Publication Year: 
2005
Publication Place: 
London
Publisher: 
Sage
Abstract: 

explore how biographical studies and discourse analysis can be related to each other / [explore] the idea that personal identity and selfhood are manifested in discursive practices, among which are the writing and telling of lives 
show that because both personal and social identities are attributes of discourse there is no ontological paradox in the evident existence of contradictions and multiplicities in the discourse / try to develop the thesis of discontinuity by drawing upon two recent developments in sociolinguistics / introduce the concept of positioning and show how, in the ways people position themselves in talk and writing, personal identity can be expressed through the presentation of a biography 
use some of the differences between "orality" and "literality" to differentiate biographical talk from a literary (auto)biography / briefly show how much of the present ambiguity of the concept of self and the related concepts of personhood, biography, and identity emerges out of the mistaken idea that the literary biography can be a sourcemodel for understanding biographical talk / discuss the implications of the foregoing for lifespan research