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

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

Foucault's work, among other things, traces the geneaology of the subject, describing subjectivity as a discursive production. For Foucault, discourse is a regulated way of speaking and acting within a system that offers "subject positions" to speakingpersons.2 By assuming a subject position (which is both a personal and social feat) a person takes a place in the social order, making sense of the world from this vantage point while also being subjected to discourses common to it (e.g., expectations, normative performances). Foucault's definition of subject position emphasizes the productive nature of disciplinary power-how it names and categorizes people into hierarchies (of normalcy, health, morality, etc.). To draw attention to this power, Foucault conducts histories of disciplinary discourses and charts their effects on bodies (1984, p. 63). He most often locates discourses outside of persons and does not emphasize other productive possibilities as carried out by subjects, themselves, in language.

Agency is seldom studied independently of essentialism, coherence, and language. Issues of agency are concerned with the question "How much influence can people have in their own lives and in the lives of others when they are part of a social order that limits language and action?" Giddens' theory of structuration addresses this question by positing the 'duality of structure,' that is, the simultaneously constraining and enabling effects of social and other structures (1984). In this theory, the agency of subjects may be determined by their subject positions, but this in no way eliminates their ability to choose between options. Choices result in individuality-the originality that differentiates people who share social identities.

Recent scholarship has blended existing theories in essentialism, coherence, and language (and has generated new ones) to make sense of human agency in particular and not-so-particular cases. Examples of this sort of theoretical/critical work include Kondo's (1990) study of power, gender, and discourses of identity in a Japanese workplace, Bobo's (1995) audience study of black women as cultural (film-media) readers, Stoltenberg's (1990) essays on (refusing to be a "masculine") man, and Donaldson's (1992) essays on feminisms, race, gender, and empire-building.

Our project relates to this overview of perspectives on subjects and identities in the following ways: It offers a detailed account of the uses of subject position and explains how it functions in persuasion, specifically argument. Also, it links language, agency, essentialism, and coherence in communicative action without reducing the speaking situation to simple either-or options (either you essentialize or you don't, either you have agency or you don't). And finally, it offers a vocabulary not necessarily affiliated with any particular ideology or identity politics with which to address perceived human injustices.

The following discussion is divided into three parts. First, we sketch two general types of subject position, explaining the various characteristics and uses of each. second, we offer a detailed example from the discourses of popular culture to illustrate how subject position is employed in argumentation, and specifically how it is used to claim or disclaim legitimacy. Third, we offer the concept of "good faith," draw implications from the ideas discussed and suggest how further study would contribute to communication theory and practice.