WHO SAID WHAT: SUBJECT POSITIONS, RHETORICAL STRATEGIES AND GOOD FAITH

Communication Studies, Winter 2003 by Anton, Corey, Peterson, Valerie V

While it may be easy, in retrospect, to look upon the unified, centered, Cartesian subject as naive, many scholars have realized that such a move may be hasty. That is, in a culture where individual rights are seen as attached to particular persons or groups of people, recognition as subjects and identities can have significant material consequences. Race and feminist theorists, especially, have shown how notions of essential subjects, or at least temporarily essential subjects posited for strategic purposes, should not be so easily dismissed (Appiah, 1995; Fuss, 1989).

Essentialism relates to coherence, which is the tendency or ability of a self to hang together. In psychological terms, people seek to maximize the internal consistency of their cognitions (e.g., beliefs and attitudes) and achieve "cognitive consistency" (O'Keefe, 1990, p. 61). Examples of theories relevant to this tendency are Heider's (1946, 1958) balance theory and Festinger's (1957) cognitive dissonance theory. In a more social sense, coherent or integrated selves are selves whose various roles, actions, and self-assessments make sense in relation to each other and in relation to larger social and cultural expectations. Efforts to describe the complexities of social identities and various possible coherences within them, such as Gergen's (1991) discussion of the "socially saturated" self and Ricoeur's (1992) discussion of "ipse" and "idem" identities, are representative. Phenomenological approaches to selves and coherence seek to integrate embodiment, sociality, and temporality (e.g., Anton, 2001; Schrag, 1997). In some cases, coherence is seen as a desirable goal for selves, an achievement of self-harmony and synchronicity with the surround. But coherence may also be a demand placed on subjects by others who expect or attribute some sort of consistency or connection between what (they think) a person "is," says, and/or does (Gergen, 1991, p. 246). Goffman's (1959, 1967) theories of dramaturgical coherence are also instructive regarding these sorts of social performances. "As an aspect of the social code of any social circle," he observes,

one may expect to find an understanding as to how far a person should go to save his face. Once he takes on a self-image expressed through face he will be expected to live up to it. In different ways in different societies he will be required to show self-respect, abjuring certain actions because they are above or beneath him, while forcing himself to perform others even though they cost him dearly. . . . In any case, while his social face can be his most personal possession and the center of his security and pleasure, it is only on loan to him from society; it will be withdrawn unless he conducts himself in a way that is worthy of it. Approved attributes and their relation to face make of every man his own jailer; this is a fundamental social constraint even though each man may like his cell (1967, p. 9-10).

Rhetoric, semiotics, deconstruction, and post-structuralism, among other approaches to people and communication, draw attention to the role of language in the development of selves and identities. In rhetoric, for example, Gregg (1971) offers a useful though ideologically charged account of ego-function in the rhetoric of protest.1 Semiotic theories show how signifiers (e.g., words) are not fixed in their relationship to signifieds (e.g., things, including selves and identities), and how language is relational rather than referential (e.g., Eco, 1976; Eco, 1984; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Ogden & Richards, 1923; Saussure, 1960). Derrida's discussion of "differance" extends this understanding by explaining how the production of meaning is constantly deferred and supplemented by the meanings of other words (1981). That is, meanings are not only "not fixed" in relation to what is being signified, they are also shaped by other elements of language which is a strange and powerful force in itself.