Sigmund Ongstad

The concept of 'positioning': bridging a 'false dichotomy'  between 
structuralisms and their 'posts'?


When we discuss the sign in general, we cannot confine our 
investigation to categories of what exists independently of thought or 
to what exists dependently on thought, because thesign is verified and 
functions relative to both.
Poinsot (1632)


Preludium

John Berger, the well known English writer decided to leave England and 
to settle in a small, isolated village in the French Alps. Close to the 
physical realities and trivialities of life, he found new entrances to 
his writing. One of the sources of inspiration was his attachment to an 
old wise woman, who had left the Catholic Church in distrust, not 
without personal costs, and whose stories and humour were deeply rooted 
in the local female culture. One day John Berger was asked to come to 
the hospital further down in the valley. The old woman was dying. When 
he arrived, her husband and a younger man were already there. Nothing 
was said. It was just the four of them. The old woman was hardly 
visible under the cover, and seemingly soon ready to draw her last 
sigh. Suddenly she opened her eyes, looked firmly at each of them in 
turn as she talked to them for the very last time, with a mild teasing 
smile: " There is the Father. And there is the Son",  and in turning to 
Berger, " and there is the Holy Ghost."

This story, told with empathy and a good portion of self-irony by 
Berger himself in a TV-interview, may serve as a starting point for my 
risky aim to use positioning as a bridge over the troubled water of 
structuralisms, poststructuralisms and semiotics. Not only is the basic 
problem metaphorized in the crucial figures, one versus two versus 
three verus one. The story also plays with the dyad (of structuralisms) 
and the triad (of semiotics). Besides it even questions the (male?) 
power in the 'given' from the perspective of a disillusioned woman 
(poststructural feminisms?). Further the story is about languages, 
different kinds of language, and it is about reference, verbal action, 
and play with the ideologies and layers of genres. In short: it a 
'true' example of positioning(s).

Aspects of triads

Imagine a sudden, specific feeling. It is whole and spontaneous. It 
cannot be grasped or interpreted by the mind or the consciousness 
(yet). It is new and closed. It can belong or be situated in any part 
of your nervesystem. It is a direct and unquestioned perception of 
form. And anything can cause it. It is 'being'. It is a monad. It is 
Firstness. 

Imagine then that this Firstness tends to become something other than 
itself. A meaning, a categorisation, a lexical unit or a storelabel is 
attached. This mental 'thing' is a Saussurean sign. It consists of a 
signifier and a signified.This combination of a Firstness and a 
'second' becomes an embryo of meaning a dyade, a Secondness.

And lastly, imagine that this Secondness turns into an utterance of any 
kind. It is a message, an action, an intention, a function, a goal, a 
will, an interpretation. The Secondness which consisted of a Firstness 

and a second, is combined with a third which turns it into a dynamic 
triadic sign. There is established a Peircean Thirdness. (Peirce 
1940/65, Dinesen 1994.)  1)

These three aspects exist side by side, however. The Thirdness or the 
triad does not necessarily remove the Secondness or the Firstness. 
(Even if the thinking mind  might push it aside for a while.) In 
Peircean terms these three aspects or sides of a sign triad would be 
called representamen, object and interpreter. In BŸhlerean terms, if 
compatible: Ausdruck (= expression), Darstellung (= representation), 
and Appell ( = appeal). (BŸhler 1934, Nšth 1990.)

To relate to these three 'phaneron' (phenomenological) aspects 
represents three different, parallel, kinds of logic. The monad is 
connected to materiality, substance, the phenomenon in itself. It is 
being. It is quality. It has to be taken as it is. It cannot be 
studied, because studying implies a disturbing 'mind'. The dyad is a 
closed relation, and therefore not only a pure monadic category. It is 
however a dyadic relation, a binaire construction, a 
one-to-one-combination. If you have seen one, you can take the other 
one for granted, like sides of a coin. Therefore it is immediately 
recognizable if you have the knowledge about the relationship between 
the two.It is quantity, and it can thus be manageable for a structural 
approach. 

The triad, on the contrary is not following any of these two 'logics'. 
It cannot be handled properly by the pure logic of language. Language 
will destroy it. It is not a Hegelian thesis-antithesis-synthesis, 
because, according to Peirce, this thinking implies a reduction to a 
binary logic. A triad is simply not logic in the 'logic' sense of 
logic. It is not open for a digital either/or.

Academic discursive strategies

Confronted with this Gordian knot there are different ways of relating 
to the paradox, depending on what the purpose of an explicit relation 
to a specific triad is. The everyday life reaction will probably be  
'communicational',  which in their very nature are triadic, you can 
react on form, content or function or any combination of the three. The 
reaction from researchers will differ depending on discipline, topic, 
interest etc. One 'solution' is ignorance, that is, not to know that 
the triad really is a triad, or pretend or hope that the third aspect 
is not (so) relevant. Thus linguists quite often place themselves in a 
corner, called syntax or semantics or pragmatics, relying on the view 
that one of these three aspects could be kept as a constant, the second 
as a 'variable', and the third is the object of the study.

One of the more advanced of these approaches is probably systemics, 
which in principle accepts that language functions in a triadic way, by 
stating that there are three components, the ideational, the textual 
and the interpersonal (Halliday 1978 and 1985, Martin 1985.) Systemics 
however focuses and gives priority to function or textual 
functionality. The structure is the given, the reference or the content 
is the variable, and the function is the object. Such a grammar will 
accordingly be a syntax which is seen as a 'describable' interplay 
between the dyad of content and use. The approach will be structural, 
not primarly in the sense that it aims to describe linguistic 
structures, but because it relies on the belief that the object of 
research could be objectively describable.

Further sysstemics is structural because it aims at building up a 
knowledge of language as such, or rather language as functional. It 

even aims at explaining meaning in real texts, but in this sense it has 
a 'blind spot' - an ideology, since it is not a part of this theory 
that structure can have 'meaning' in itself, as Firstness. The reason 
for this unawareness is that structure is seen as a communicational 
abstract. Systemics, which in theory stresses the relational and the 
systemic character of a system, is in practice a structural approach. 
The same holds for any other pragmatism, and is not only restricted to 
linguistics. By giving priority to action (or any other main aspect) 
the dynamics of the triad dies.2)

Another way in or out is the Barthesian metaphor or the Derridaean 
deconstruction. (Gundersen 1989.) In his later years Barthes turned his 
back to structuralism in favour of a paradoxical solution to meaning 
problems: by developing highly artistic metaphors in response to 
challenges in writing. This path of course represents the end of the 
well guarded genre called 'research', although this does not 
necessarily mean that this 'genre-break' is waisted or irrelevant for 
academic studies of culture. Rather it implies that the 'right' way to 
do research is challenged, (Maclure 1994); and it changes even more the 
relevance of construct validity.(Cherryholmes 1988, Lather 1993.)

The Derridaean approach is often labelled 'poststructural' or 
'deconstructional'. Dinesen (1994a and 1994b) however is more concerned 
about the nominalistic character of Derrida's writings. Although 
Derrida (1967) is one of the very few poststructuralists who borrows 
from Peirce, Dinesen (1994) puts forward that his reading of Peirce is 
so narrow that it needs a critical inspection. Her main critique is 
that Derrida's understanding leads to 'nominalism'.

Dinesen argues that Derrida's notion of the sign is nominalistic 
because he makes a basic distinction between 'within-the-language' and 
'outside-the-language' in such a way that the language, seen as a sign 
system, will function as some kind of nomenclature for a chaotic 
nature. Even though Derrida does not directly fall into the old 
thing=sign-fallacy, he still conceptualizes language signs as 'names'. 
The signs are arbitrary and they functions as symbols. Dinesen argue 
that the symbol-function is only one way of meaning.

According to Dinesen, the nominalist assumes that the extrinsic world 
has no existence on its own, but first turns into existence when the 
human being through the senses discovers and gradually becomes able to 
organize the chaos of the world. This premiss seems to nurture the idea 
that what the senses sense, is primarly 'interpretations'. The tendency 
to give priority to such a view is characteristic for studies of 
literature, which as an academic discipline could easily be tempted to 
consider words only as references to other words, in an endless 
arbitrary row of intertextuality. 

Even poststructuralists hasitate. Paul de Man has warned that:"It would 
be quite foolish to assume that one can lightheartedly move away from 
the constraint of referential meaning". (Schleifer 1984:215.) Taking 
this statement seriously, one should ask how reference is related to 
structure and actions. An answer is an reciprocal triad. BŸhlerian, 
Bakhtinian and Peircean understandings might agree upon a triadic view 
on a dynamic sign or utterance, based on the principle of dominance of 
these three aspects as meaning.( BŸhler 1934, Bakhtin 1986, Peirce 
1940/65.) The principle of dominance respects the logic of the triad in 
the sense that all three aspects always 'count'. This does not mean 
that actions, meanings, and structures cannot be studied separately. 
They might, but if they where the object of research will no longer be 
'meaning' or 'communication', and the approach will be structural and 
dyadic. The premiss of the definition of communication is that meaning 

is within the balance of these three aspects. If one of them is absent, 
'communication' will collapse or not occur.

Conflicts between structuralisms and their 'posts'

On one hand one may follow Gombrich's thesis "all thinking is 
classifying", and on the other BŸhler's "all signs are triads". Through 
language we are at any moment forced into the paradoxical blurred 
oppositions of and shifts between dyadic categorization and triadic 
openness. This is the case not only regarding what we investigate, but 
even for our tool of fixation, the research language. We force triadic 
meaning into a managable dyadic entity by 'controlled' 
decontextualization. However at the same time we develop, through 
academic semiosis, new knowledge, new meaning.

Confronted with the utterance, the structuralist will probably do as 
follows: The research object will be seen as a function of the two 
other aspects in the triad. If more evidence is needed, the researcher 
will triangulate each of the standpoints and decide by controlled 
interpretations what is most likely. In order to control this process, 
an apparatus of formal methods will be established. Besides this there 
will probably be a disciplinary related hesitation confronted with 
questions which answers that cannot be validated.

On the contrary the poststructuralist, echoing Baudrillard, might 
either deny that the signs refer to things; or s/he will be less 
interested in fixed aspects of meanings, seeking the uncertain. The 
poststructuralist is likely to avoid structuralistic concepts and 
understanding, like formal methods, defined categories and concepts. It 
is often misunderstood though that the poststructuralist does not 
accept structure as basic. On the contrary a poststructuralist is in 
this respect a kind of superstructuralist, being especially concerned 
with this aspect.  A parallel to this contradictory may be drawn to 
Hutcheon, who, in investigating the relationship between modernism and 
postmodernism claimed that: It makes neither a simple and radical break 
with it nor a straightforward continuity with it: it is both and 
either. (Hutcheon 1987:23.) The structure may even function as a 
'seducer'. 'Deconstructors' thus play with structure to create 
consciousness about contradictions and multilayered meaning 
possibilities.3) 

Positioning

Positioning is known as a term from economic, political, and military 
discourses. In addition, and more relevantly,it has been used, mainly 
by sociologists or educational sociologists to allow for a more 
flexible and more dynamic understanding than, for example 'role'. 
(McDermott 1976, Giddens 1984, Davies and HarrŽ 1990, HarrŽ and 
Langenhove 1991, Ferrie 1993, Davies and Hunt 1994, HeinŠmaa 1994, 
Willson 1994, Langenhove and HarrŽ, forthcoming.) In these approaches 
the notion of positioning will refer to some kind of active, conscious 
strategy, which is related to power in situations of (face to face) 
interactions.

Connected to a semiotic genre theory however, positioning refers  
specifically to the dynamic act of uttering, in a broad semiotic sense, 
and therefore related to any kind of communication. This 
conceptualization does not relate directly to any of the different 
approaches above, but it rather finds some of its inspiration in 
Bakhtin's late problematizations of the utterance. (Bakhtin 1986.) It 
points to the utterer's specific relation to aspects of the utterance, 
or by alluding to Peirce's categories, to Firstness, Secondness and 

Thirdness. During the process of uttering any utterer is forced to 
balance the three mutual aspects of expressivity, referenciality and 
addressivity by positioning. It is not a question of taking a position. 
The utterance is basically dynamic, and shifts in positioning are 
needed step by step. In every single element there is a change in the 
balance. 4)

Positioning as a concept is relational and thus in itself empty. It 
refuses in the first hand to be treated as a traditional category, 
since it sees itself as related to a system, both systemic and 
rizomatic. It incorporates the understanding of genre, ideologi and 
semiosis. It is deliberately coined in ing-form to oppose a hasty 
categorization and counting, which still might be done however, by 
registrations of positioning-s. Research positioning explicitly 
acknowledges ideologies of utterances and genres, like cubism in 
painting, by forcing the user of the concept to face the implications 
of the utterance. It might be used by structuralists, since it can 
easily be operationalized and combined with most formal methods. 
However it should even attract poststructuralists, since the 
relativeness and lack of fixed meanings in 'positioning' are close to 
poststructural practices.

A crucial aspect of positioning is its relation to 
theme-rheme-processes. To simplify, genre may be seen roughly as the 
theme-part of any utterance, the known, the given. The rheme-part is 
the new, and has always to be blurred with the given in order to 
function as communication. It is therefore fair to state that the more 
the theme is given, the more the genre may pre-scribe the positioning 
for the utterer. The more new elements, the more risky the positioning 
will be for the utterer as well as the receiver, and the more delicate 
and creative the new elements have to be combined in order to reach the 
receiver.

Further positioning implies conscious and unconscious relations to the 
ideology of the genre or the discourse, through which the utterance is 
patterned. Positioning as inevitable both for utterer and receiver. 
However the internal relationship between the two is normally 
asymmetric or complementary. This means, for instance, that the 
joke-teller imposes the role of audience upon the receiver (which of 
course might be resisted or redefined).

Research as a postmodern enterprise of reference?

The genre positions the utterer and the receiver mutually. However even 
its ideologies function asymmetric, which means that the utterer and 
the receiver are bound to the same 'local' culture, but are differently 
positioned regarded its value. On the surface though it might look as 
if genre functions as a discursive (shared) community. Most important 
though is that research implies a strong meta-positioning, a kind of 
non-acting attitude, that is, a classifying one. This means that the 
researcher basically reacts on utterances as references, even if the 
utterances are not meant to be 'referential'. The often self-imposed 
ethical regime of research may in the long term understimulate the 
researcher's ability to awareness for other ways of meaning. The 
researcher might develop the postmodern journalist's attitudes, who, 
like a vulture, is waiting for the right event to turn up so it can be 
turned into reportable 'news', without engaging too much in the 
feelings of people who were part of the event. 

Academic research as well as publishing in general are therefore based 
on and nurture postmodern capitalism, for which the fast production of 
words and pictures is more important than reactions to it. Schools and 

education function in much the same way. It is basically a hinderance 
to take an ethical, personal responsibility for acquired knowledge. The 
idealistic Socratesean and Freire-inspired slogan that to know (the 
right) is to do (the right) has no chance to be fullfilled in school, 
whose major function is competition for the best start-positions while 
waiting for real life to begin. School has always been 
reference-oriented, and the evaluation system is a symptomatic 
evidence. Compared with tendencies in (post-)structuralisms 
to'referentialism', the differences between structural and 
poststructural enterprises might seem minimal. They are both basically 
word-producers, offering these words on a shifting market, where smart 
and rapid positioning is the difference between academic survival or 
death. 

Hence even poststructuralists start with the decontextualized text or 
by object-preparing the utterance. The text is thus a 'thing' you can 
do whatever you want with. This 'liberalism' might in the end threaten 
the genuine dialogue in communication.5) The poststructural reseracher 
will hardly accept an utterer's 'intention', either as a starting point 
or as a final goal. Maclure, discussing dilemmas in poststructural 
feminisms, warns that In rejecting essentialism, feminist theories 
continuously face the danger of rejecting their own platform for 
action. (Maclure 1994:291.)

Accordingly, analyzing positioning implies an explicit relation to the 
reciprocity of the triadic aspects; the understanding of the dialogical 
relationship between the genre and the utterance (semiosis); the 
investigations of the unsaid ideologies implicit in the 
utterance/genre; and the clarifying of the discursive relationship 
between the researched utterance and the researcher as a receiver in 
the first turn, and between the research-utterance and the receiving 
audience in the next turn.





Exemplifying positioning(s) - a text and its post-positioning(s)

A Day on the Beach

One day when may mother had a day off . she get a brilliant ide. Sens 
it was sunshinne gud vi drive to the beach. When we was drivin the, was 
all i was thinking abaut was to take a bathe. When we cald see the 
coast, I sa that it was a lott's of people ther . When my mamy hed 
parked the car walked we down to the beach. I ran to the see and swam 
around. It was lovly. My mamy blow upp my ball and trou it in the 
wather to my. Suddenly a bornning playn was komin to the beach all the 
people was skriming   .  the playn crach in the san and a lott of 
people wass killd and hurt
THE ENDTHAT'S ALL FOKS

________________________________________________________________________ 
___________
Andy is in 6x (age 13). This is Andy's narrative from a lesson in 
English (ESL) where the task was to write a text with point of 
departure in a text-book text on the same topic.Andy's text is from 
Ongstad (1995a).

An ideology of task as a school genre is to get it right. Another may 
be to write a interesting story, and a third may be simply to do it, to 
hand in something of reasonable length. These three expectations 

constrain Andy's positioning.  His parents want him to do right. His 
Norwegian teacher appreciates interesting and well-told stories. The 
English teacher however, warns against too fancy stories. She wants the 
focus to be on language learning. Straight-jacked between these 
ideologies Andy tries to fullfil them all in his own way. The first 
part of his narrative is a response to duty. However the focus is still 
on the story. Besides, correctness in this school-game is important. 
(Although 6th graders in Norway do not get marks.) Andy does not care 
so much about his spelling or his syntax. (Or is he not aware of the 
problem?) He seems pleased to discover that he is able to find words to 
express something in a foreign language.

Andy, though, is a boy of expression. Feelings are important. And 
dynamics, even in verbal form can create that. He cannot let be. The 
dull expectation of what you are supposed to write under the schoolish 
genre of A Day on the beach  has to be opposed or juxta-positioned, 
filling the rest of the page with 'Andy special'. Based on his highly 
developed knowledge of certain patterns of media-genres he creates, 
literally a total crash, while he at the same time probably feels that 
these aspects belong to the culturally relevant environment of 
'English'. 'Englishishness' in Norway, is of course not only associated 
with school. Maybe even stronger, for Andy, are the threads to cartoons 
and violent action films. In this sense he is positioned by impulses 
from these cultures/genres as well, and not only by 'tasks' in school.

My reading of Andy's text is based on my observation of him when he 
wrote it, my decontextualization afterwards, and my interest in this 
text as it relates to my research. I have got the idea that Andy, not 
only here, but generally is not communicating as most of the other 
children, in spite of the fact that he behaves and acts normally in the 
classroom. My hypothesis is that he is a Firstness-boy. Writing is 
about feelings. That is the Dominant of the aspects of meaning. 
Communicating referential elements, informing or direct acting are 
still present of course, but they are secondary. I interpret Andy's 
written utterances as remarkably postmodern: I write (and express) then 
I am. Elsewhere he often fills up margins with sharks, which more or 
less function as tags, his signified I. (He also wears a Shark-cap.) He 
is his expression while expressing.

Research positioning(s)

This positioned reading is filled with some kind of ideological 
empathy. Not only is he a boy like me. My positionings of him even fits 
my project. It is tempting to use his writing to show my main points, 
or to argue that I am 'right' or that my reading is 'reasonable'. Hence 
I am likely to overlook Andy's problems, which might be caused by a  
well developed ear but a week eye for written language in general and 
English in particular.

My position is semiotic and theoretical, which means that I emphazise 
the referential aspect in my own utterance. A structural approach would 
argue on the field of content. Poststructuralisms are more practices 
than theories. Their response would probably be more addressive, if 
responsive at all. However I do not think it is a coincident that 
semiotics and poststructuralism in some cases are blurred and 
inter-twined. There is a tendency of the two to neighbourhood: They 
both are concerned about the conflicting multiplicities of the sign, 
and find the tacitness of traditional disciplines on this point 
provoking or challenging. 

However, it is likewise clear that quite many semioticians chase 
explicitnes, clearness and definite definitions, and consider that 

poststructuralists run away from their responsibility as 'real' 
researchers. A 'constellation' of a different kind can be seen in the 
'positionings' in the Australian Genre debate. The Australian Genre 
approach is said to be based on systemics and social semiotics or what 
I would characterize respectively as advanced structralism of dyads 
(Martin 1985 and a reduced semiotics of the triad (Kress 1993). This 
contradiction in terms provokes Threadgold (1989), and she claims that 
the result is blindness on a crucial spot, the ideology of the 
systemics. That suggests that systemics is tacit about what it cannot 
face. In Threadgold (1993) the attack is even stronger. Formally 
oriented linguistics fails to understand its own semiotic basis. For a 
academic (woman) confronted with the paradox of language(s), the most 
sensible solution is a poststructural one.

Her attack is similar and parallel to that of Freadman, who, relying on 
Derrida's The Law of Genre, (Derrida 1980) refutes the logic of 
either/or and claims that it is necessary to shift to both/and, which 
for her is to give up structuralism in favour of poststructuralism. 
(Freadman 1994.) However it is noticable that these two scholars do not 
refute the relevance of genre theory. On the contrary it is crucial to 
any paradigm, since "you cannot not use genres". And they both see 
semiotics as a tool or as a logical consequence of the urge to come to 
terms with the nature of texts and signs. And equally noticably: 
neither of them takes up the dilemma of the triad, in spite the fact 
that this an obviously unclear point in the semiotics of any 
Hallidayism: The ideational, the interpersonal and the textual. 6)  

The ideologies of poststructuralisms are several, depending on the 
'kind of -ism'. One is that poststructural methods or approaches are 
value-related, without saying so, in academic 'liberalism'. The 
difference between Ricoeur and Derrida is that the former communicate 
with the past and the future by staying faithful to the philosophical 
network of concepts, while Derrida creates his own, and the reader has 
to communicate mostly with him. While Ricoeur thus has his ethical 
anchorage in a discipline as well as on the nature of the investigated 
object, Derrida prefers liberty, a free position, his own language to 
present a more subjective understanding. The tendency to deconstruction 
based on ad-hoc concepts is of course not less ethical than any other 
approach. On the contrary it is often needed, since 'disciplined' 
approaches are often too disciplined and irrelevant. The ideology and 
the falacy are that the final outcome is not communication, but 
publication. This is in it self highly postmodern: it is about to be 
heard, to be seen.

Of course not only. The poststructural approaches taken by many 
academic women, are also about opposition, finding a new, unsafe 
platform, making conscious. All these intentions are value loaded, and 
in one sense structural, since they are clearly goal oriented 
discursive strategy, even if some of the required strategies or 
positionings should imply intellectual 'teasings' and send-ups.


Poststructuralisms, semiotics and semiosis

One scenario is that the poststructuralisms (seen as discursive 
approaches) supported by postmodernism (seen as a general trend) may be 
able to 'empty' utterances for 'real value', that is, feelings 
connected to references. The nihilism of the sign for the signs's own 
sake (the Baudrillardean implosion) might turn so consequently 
nihilistic in its orientation, that this emptying becomes an ideology, 
a value in itself. Another is that poststructuralism oppose the power 
of structural paradigms, to obtain power. If poststructural approaches 

are successful, they will gain power and thus become their own enemy.

At the same time  general semiotics, eager to show its holistic 
potential, without any goal in itself, may turn to a meeting place for 
meanings about meaning, and not a discipline in its own right. I think 
though that semiotics should try to negotiate between structuralisms 
and poststructuralisms. It is important to establish a theoretical 
framework which can start to investigate differences and oppositions. I 
think searching for connections will give more 'rizomatic' than 
tree-like answers, to allude to Lather's discussion of 
poststructuralisms versus structuralisms. (Lather 1993.) However, I 
would think that the point of departure has to be paradoxically 
triadic.

In my opinion the main value of Peircean semiotics is the concept of 
semiosis - any use of sign produces new signs in an endless row. 
Traditional structural approaches often skip this problem, by giving 
priority to manageable utterances, by decontextualizing, by 
establishing artifical constants not found outside the labotory, or by 
simply overlooking or knwing that the problem exist and is relevant.

Poststructuralists may also be unaware of the theory, but are in fact 
more likely to make the process of semiosis, not only to the (implicit) 
topic for the writing, (le diffŽrance) but even to a crucial part of 
the 'methodology' or to the writing strategy. (Deconstruction.) While 
semiosis in principle is a basic aspect of any utterance, the actual 
poststructural practice in general might contribute to the 
'mis-conception' that the fixed, steady part of the signs, the 
utterances, the texts is less important, less interesting and less 
relevant.  Poststructuralisms are often tacit about the 'fact' that 
some meanings, phenomena, conceptions, signs, discourses are less 
changable  through semiosis than others. This is not to deny that 
poststructuralisms the last 25 years have contributed significantly to 
the increased understanding of the problem of fixing the flows of 
meaning.

Can 'positioning' bridge the gap?

Hence in sum the dichotomies between structuralisms and their posts are 
not necessarily so much between research paradigms as between 
Bourdieuean 'fields'. There is a contest between being in or out. In 
fact it is about taste, distinction, and power. Here positioning could 
reveal some quasi differences. In the end the most important questions 
are relevance and ethics. Who is this research really for? 
(Cherryholmes 1988.) In answerering that question I am not a 
poststructuralist; I would like my research ro reach someone, and I 
have my priorities of who I think it might concern. Regarding practical 
approaches I have few problems following poststructuralist; I see the 
butterfly-like descriptions, interpretations as - yes precisely 
-positionings. To 'understand' this from a semiotic and poststructural 
perspective perspective, does not destroy the values imbedded in the 
utterances. In my opinion it helps to see possible compatabilities 
between the structures and their posts by commuting between the 
positioning(s). 

Hence, alluding to Foucault, the doxa of traditional research needs to 
be opposed from a heterodox counter argument like the old woman in 
Berger's story revealing 'maleness' in discourses of Christianity and 
society. It would be 'natural' that the respons from the establishment 
is orthodoxy, defending research as the art of validation of 
structures. I feel confident though that there is a sensible place for 
the paradoxical triadic positioning in these struggles on, through, and 

towards meaningful meaning.7)

To open ends with the beginning: One clear statement was made more than 
360 years ago, at the very birth of semiotics (..):We cannot confine 
our investigation to categories of what exists independently of thought 
or to what exists dependently on thought, because the sign is verified 
and functions relative to both. This positions the sign where it 
belongs  - in between. Hence Poinsot even guides us where to take place 
in relation to utterances - dynamically in between.






Notes

1. This is my use of Peirce. There are many interpretations and uses of 
Peirce related to the question of triads.  Eco (1976),  Suhor (1984), 
Houser (1987), Rossi (1987),  Nšth (1990), Sebeok (1991), Braga (1993), 
Deely (1993), Graner (1993), Leo (1993) and  RŽthorŽ (1993).

2. A discussion of the problem of functions in language, see Nuyts 
(1993).

3. Maclure (1994) discusses deconstruction as 'the double gesture'.

4. For a more detailed description, see Ongstad (1994, 1995b and 
1995c).

5. Cf.Habermas'disputes with Lyotard on modernism/postmodernism, 
Habermas 1981. See even Neil Postmans, We amuse ourselves to death  on 
his fear for the breakdown of dialogue in society.) 

6. For a critique of Halliday's conceptions of 'function', see Nuyts 
(1993).
7. A poststructuralist may comment: Poststructuralists do not see 
'meaning', or want it. It is all constructed.

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_______________________________________________
Addr.: Dep. of Teacher Education, Oslo College,
Pilestredet 52, N-0167 OSLO, NORWAY.
Phone:  (47) 22 45 21 82 Fax: (47) 22 45 21 35. 
E-mail: Sigmund.Ongstad@lu.hioslo.no