Abstract: Previous reviews on positioning theory mostly described its developmental trajectories, giving less attention to its theoretical foundations and data sources. However, doing so can shed light on theoretical innovation. With a close reading of the literature, it is found that 1) the analytical focus has shifted from narrative analysis, dialogic analysis, interactional analysis, to integrated approach; 2) the theories that informed the development are speech acts theory and narratology, Bakhtin’s dialogic theory and Goffman's production format, conversation analysis and interactional sociolinguistics, theory of indexicality and relation principle within Grice’s CP. 3) the more direct reason is that the data sources changed from fabricated narratives, interview narratives, small stories, to conversational narratives and ethnographic fieldwork. Positioning theory has brought new theoretical perspectives to sociolinguistics, foreign language teaching, and pragmatics. All in all, the respect for linguistic facts and introduction of novel theoretical perspectives has led to ongoing theoretical innovation in narrative positioning framework.