configuration |
Working Definition:
In general, a configuration is the expression that accompanies configuring. To put the matter as simply as possible, a configuration offers an analogy from one realm of experience to suggest the contour of an experience in another realm.
An IP configuration epxresses an experience transfer in which a person transposes herself or himself into another person.
A story configuration is composed of a self-figure, an other-figure, and a relation of change. Other narrative elements can be added into the configuration, e.g., a functional figure, setting, discourse, etc. However, a configuration is marked by a transposition wherein the narrtor assumes the perspective of another person. Conversely, when a reader assumes the position of "I.," he imposes his subjectivity on the narrator. In a story configuration, change occurs either explicitly or implicitly.
Disciplinary Definitions:
"configuration (set of points in [a] domain" (Langacker, Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, 2002, 149) Langacker uses configuration in a more limited sense but one that can be expanded to reflect configuration as the outcome of configuring. Since the heart of configuring is the transposition/transportation, then a configuration as its expression sets the points at which the figures are positioned and identifies their perspectives so that it shows how the trans-psiting occurs. "the major configurational domains (time and space)" (Langacker, 2002, 153). This may also be a clue to our ability to describe experiences--they necessarily are in time and space.
Gestalt pyschology: A configuration is an organized pattern of interrelated parts. In studying a configuration the parts are analyzed in relation to each other rather than as isolated individual elements, and the emphasis is upon the total structure--the pattern of the larger whole. (Theodorson and Theodorson, A Modern Dictionary of Sociology.)
Comments:
A configuration has to be "activated" by the process of configuring. An experience of a panoptic situation, for example, does not make it a configuration unless the experience includes a transposition into the state of a prisoner of the situation as someone under surveillance.
Basically, a story configuration is a "minimal story" in an experience exchange. [I'm still puzzling out whether all configurations are explicit or implicit stories. If the panopticon is a configuration, it is not a story. or is it an implicit story: initial state of affairs (conflict between prisoner and guard, desire not to be under surveillance. turning event: the guards panoptic gaze which positions him as omnipresent. final state: prisoner succombs to guard. This is the story that would be told to persuade government officials to build panopticons and which is implied by the architectural positioning. Same can be argued for the Bonaventure Hotel lobby. See Notes.]
A configuration is NOT a script. a script, as a sequence of events, can be an element in a configuration but only if there is some kind of transposition.
Notes
I have used the panopticon 
as an instance of a configuration.
The self-figure is the prisoner. The other figure is the guard. The relationship
is surveillance
which implies a transposition in as much as the guard may either be watching
the prisoner or not watching him. I can short-hand this configuration with
the use of a concept such as "panoptic surveillance." This is useful
when I wish to designate a particular situation as a type of surveillance.
However,
when I have to explain this concept to someone else, as Foucault does for his
readers, I have to "tell the story," express it as either an IP or
story configuration.
Another example I have used is the cyborg. The self-figure is the human aspect of the persons. The other figure is the non-human aspect of the figure. The relationship is extension where the non-human extends the human. The implied transposition is that the non-human functions as human.
Patty's favorite example is the Westin Bonaventure. In this configuration, the self-figure is the guest. The other figure is the hotel. The relationship is disorientation. The transposition is from a readers of Jameson who change their perspective from conventional hotel orientation to an unconventional hotel which is disorienting. Jameson is the "storyteller" in this account. It is Jameson who confiures the Westin Bonaventure as "postmodern."
All of these configurations can be "extended" to other domains of experience.
See:
[01] The term “configuration” is used extensively in Cog Grammar. Langacker uses it to refer to situations that include a speaker, perceptual field, figure (not nec a person), etc. (Langacker, Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, 2002b, 318) . In the way I’ve defined it here, it expresses a “transposition.” This is not Langacker’s use of the term. However I am using it "technically." He uses it in the ordinary language sense. To avoid confusion, I need to add adjectives to the term "configuration." analogical configuration, IP configuration, and story configuration. Since configuring as a cognitive process entails drawing an analogy from one realm of experience to another, confiugrations are experiential analogies. They occur at a relatively "high" level of schematic generality. They can also be "collapsed" or "condensed" as concepts.
[Is a configuration an instance of "objectification." (an objective transposition).??]
jjs
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last revised:
June 13, 2007
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