Alignment, positioning and stance

The concept of alignment was introduced by Goffman to refer to the manner in which individuals choose to situate themselves in relation to the frames of expectation of the other individuals with whom they interact. Although it can be used to signify genuine agreement or solidarity, alignment more usually indicates the appearance of agreement, or what Goffman (1959, p.9) referred to as a “veneer of consensus”. This serves to prevent conflicts from arising and to ensure that the pursuit of the aims of interaction are allowed to continue uninterrupted.

One kind of alignment that is particularly relevant to this research is the concept of the team, which can be variously referred to as a “coalition,” or an “alliance,” “association,”

or “ensemble” (Kangasharju, 1996, p.292). Teams can be made up of “various kinds of collectivities based on extra-interactional, pre-established relationships” (Kangasharju, 1996, p.292). Kangasharju’s (1996) study focused on the creation of teams in institutional conversations involving conflict and explored how two participants in the interaction form a team for the purposes of defending a particular position against those adopting the opposing position. Kangasharju (1996, p.293) observed that: “In such cases, the initiator of the team is a subsequent speaker who aligns with a previous speaker. A simplified version of the structure of [this] sequence […] is as follows:

A Argument 


B Counter-argument 
 C Endorsement of B 


Defense, Acquiescence, Silence, etc.”

It is worth noting that Kangashru identifies several different strategies used to facilitate the formulation of such social groupings. Some of these aligning and distancing devices are linguistic in nature such as the use of source markers, collaborative turn sequences, upgrading assertions of agreement, repetition and paraphrasing of elements of another speaker's speech, and employing demonstratives. Other strategies would be classed as para-linguistic and include the use of gaze, posture, facial expressions, movements, gestures, laughter, and other noises.

Kangasharju’s analysis with its specific focus on team formation occurring as a response to conflict has some interesting parallels with Gordon’s (2003) discussion of team formation in step-family interaction even though the team she examines does not arise from conflict unlike the case examined by Kangasharju. Gordon (2003) identified a phenomenon that she called a “supportive alignment” that is “an alignment in which one participant ratifies and supports another’s turns at talk and what he or she has to say, creating ties of cooperation, collaboration, and agreement” (p.397). She noted how this was accomplished by means of various modes such as shared smiles and laughter, repetition of another participant’s words, supportive back channeling, conferring (i.e. shared discussion through deliberation), and collaborative sentence building. Gordon also observed that team members also employed turn sharing, alternating parallel turns and enacting shared prior experiences or knowledge schemas as part of the formation of

supportive alignments.

In the present study, this concept of alignment will be used when examining how members of the same family align themselves with the frames or stances of other family members as a means of constructing their religious identity in both conflictual and non- conflictual interactions (see Chapter Two and section 3.3.3 for an earlier discussion of alignment).

Another concept that is connected to alignment is that of positioning. It can be understood as the process of interaction that allows individuals to generate what Davies and Harré (1990, p.47) call a “diversity of selves”. During an encounter, participants adopt, reject or allocate positions on the basis of how they choose to situate not only themselves but also other participants vis-à-vis (1) values or attributes (which may be seen as permanent or temporary); (2) types of social category formations (such as father/daughter); and (3) discourses, namely, ways of talking and behaving at various levels (including, for example, discipline, politics, culture, small-scale groups) with regard to various subjects, such as gender or class. Discourse can be said to make available the positions within which participants situate themselves as well as others (see Chapter Two for an earlier discussion of positioning).

Du Bois (2007) used both these notions, namely, alignment and positioning, in his development of what he named “the stance triangle”. According to Du Bois (2007, p.171), a “stance is not something you have, not a property of interior psyche, but something you do, something you take. Taking a stance cannot be reduced to a matter of private opinion or attitude.” The three key components of the stance triangle are positioning, alignment and evaluation (Du Bois, 2007). A stance act occurs when a stance taker evaluates an object, positions him- or herself and others in a particular manner and also aligns him- or herself with others. Du Bois also argued that three key elements need to be taken into consideration when analysing any instance of stance-taking. These are: (1) Who is the stance-taker?; (2) What is the object of the stance? and (3) What stance is the stance-taker responding to? All three of these questions must be answered when attempting to interpret stance (see sections 2.1.2 and 2.2.1 for an earlier discussion of stance).

All three of these elements will be explored in the analysis chapters of this study (Chapters Four, Five and Six) when attempting to determine the stance which participants take when (co-)constructing their Muslim identity in family interactions.