The heterogeneously distributed self

Recent work in "distributed" and "situated" cognition has moved away from p sychological structure as the primary explanation for human understanding. Instead, structures at various levels of explanation-at least the linguisti c, social, cultural, interactional, and mental-together constitute successf ul cognition. Analogously, this article argues, the self is not primarily a psychological entity, but instead emerges from structures at various level s of explanation. The article focuses on the level of interactional positio ning in conversation to illustrate how non-psychological structure can part ly constitute the self. It focuses on the interactional positioning done by narrators as they tell stories about themselves and describes the interact ional functions of autobiographical narrative discourse. Bakhtin's theory o f language's interactional functions is drawn on and applied to one life st ory.