Discursive Psychology

Classic and contemporary issues

Cristian Tileagă, Elizabeth Stokoe

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317950547
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Discursive Psychology is the first collection to systematically and critically appraise the influence and development of its foundational studies, exploring central concepts in social psychology such as attitudes, gender, cognition, memory, prejudice, and ideology. The book explores how discursive psychology has accommodated and responded to assumptions contained in classic studies, discussing what can still be gained from a dialogue with these inquiries, and which epistemological and methodological debates are still running, or are worth reviving.

International contributors look back at the original ideas in the classic papers, and consider the impact on and trajectory of subsequent work. Each chapter locates a foundational paper in its academic context, identifying the concerns that motivated the author and the particular perspective that informed their thinking. The contributors go on to identify the main empirical, theoretical or methodological contribution of the paper and its impact on consequent work in discursive psychology, including the contributors' own work. Each chapter concludes with a critical consideration of how discursive psychology can continue to develop.

This book is a timely contribution to the advance of discursive psychology by fostering critical perspectives upon its intellectual and empirical agenda. It will appeal to those working in the area of discursive psychology, discourse analysis and social interaction, including researchers, social psychologists and students.

Part I Epistemology and method

1 Interpretative repertoires, conversation analysis and being critical

Ann Weatherall

DOI: 10.4324/9781315863054-1

Target article: Wetherell, M. (1998) ‘Positioning and interpretative repertoires: conversation analysis and post-structuralism in dialogue’, Discourse & Society, 9: 387–412.

Introduction

The target article of this chapter – Wetherell’s (1998) ‘Positioning and interpretative repertoires: Conversation analyses and poststructuralism’ – was written in response to Schegloff’s (1997) Whose text? Whose context? His rebuttal to her response furthered the debate (Schegloff, 1998). Those three publications generated additional discussion threads also published in Discourse & Society. One was Weatherall (2000), which focused on the implications of Wetherell’s and Schegloff’s views for feminist gender and language studies, where the implications of the debate for critical research have generated ongoing discussion (Kitzinger, 2007; Weatherall et al., 2010; Speer, 2001; Stokoe and Smithson, 2001; Speer and Stokoe, 2011; Weatherall and Gallois, 2003). Another discussion thread of the debate was Billig (1999), who contributed to the debate by critiquing the rhetoric of conversation analysis. However, space limitations do not permit that to be part of the present discussion.

The Wetherell–Schegloff debate aired fundamental theoretical, analytic and applied issues for discourse analytic work within the social sciences. Indications of the considerable import of what was discussed and the widespread scholarly impact of the two papers are citations to them. As this chapter was being written, the Web of Science Core Collection records nearly 500 citations to Wetherell (1998) and over 300 to Schegloff (1997) – Google Scholar has well over double those counts for Wetherell and more than triple for Schegloff. One of the general matters at stake in this debate was how best to motivate and conduct principled, insightful and scholarly social scientific analyses of talk (and, to a lesser extent, written texts). Producing rigorous analyses of psychological topics and concerns grounded in language-in-use is central to discursive psychology (Edwards, 2012; Potter, 2012).

A particular aspect of Wetherell’s (1998) contribution was that she directly raised an emerging schism between ‘non-critical’ and ‘critical’ lines of discourse analytic inquiry within psychology. That is, between researchers who were drawing on conversation analytic work and those following post-structuralist or Foucauldian lines of inquiry. Both traditions importantly informed Potter and Wetherell’s (1987) discursive reformulation of social psychology and Wetherell advocated for a continuation of that earlier kind of synthetic approach, albeit further strengthening a post-structuralist perspective on discourse and subjectivity in the interests of radical, democratic political projects. Citations to Wetherell (1998) largely legitimate and motivate politically inspired styles of discourse analysis without serious recourse to Schegloff’s (1997) critique. In contrast, the political and applied relevance of conversation analytic studies within discursive psychology has become accountable (Antaki, 2011; Stokoe, Hepburn and Antaki, 2012).

A further feature of the Wetherell–Schegloff debate that resonated with discourse analytic approaches within psychology concerned the legitimacy of invoking social categories such as gender, race or sexuality – when those categorisations are not observably relevant for the participants who are engaged in the interaction being analysed. Schegloff (1997) made a compelling case for a conversation analytic mentality that makes no a priori assumptions on what categorisations of the data are analytically relevant in a stretch of talk. He argued that analyses should be grounded in the observable or endogenous concerns of the participants in an interaction. Discourse analytic studies of identity within psychology were already embracing the kind of approach Schegloff was advocating (Antaki and Widdicombe, 1998). For example, Edwards (1998) examined how different person category terms, such as girl and woman, were mobilised in a couple’s counselling session to formulate a referent in ways that served the interests of the speaker.

Margaret Wetherell has been a key figure in the emergence of what has become known as ‘critical discursive psychology’ and her work continues to merge very different social science traditions to topics important in psychology, such as emotion (Wetherell, 2012). With Potter, she was among the first to import constructionst theories of language as discourse in social psychology. They also established the ‘interpretative repertoire’ as a conceptual unit for discourse analytic studies of psychological topics and concerns (Wetherell, Stiven and Potter, 1987). She was a co-author of Discourse and Social Psychology (Potter and Wetherell, 1987), which was a foundational text in the development of discursive psychology. Wetherell and Potter’s (1992) Mapping the language of racism illuminated the relationships between racialised social identities, language practices and ideology in ways that had never been done before within social psychology.

This chapter will proceed by discussing three aforementioned representative texts – Wetherell, Stiven and Potter (1987), Potter and Wetherell (1987) and Wetherell and Potter (1992) – in order to locate the target article within its theoretical, empirical and historical context. The views expressed in ‘Positioning and interpretative repertoires: Conversation analysis and post-structuralism in dialogue’ (Wetherell, 1998) stemmed from ongoing concerns – critique in the service of producing grounded and politically relevant analyses of social life, productive synthesis of social scientific theories and discourse methods to produce new insights, and methodological development in the analysis of actual language practices. It also clearly marked a point of departure from the shared work with Jonathan Potter who, along with Derek Edwards (Edwards and Potter, 1992), continued to advocate and progress the relevance of conversation analysis for discursive psychology (Edwards, 1995; Te Molder and Potter, 2005). After considering the academic context informing Wetherell (1998), it will be considered more closely as a response to Schegloff’s (1997) paper. The chapter will conclude with a discussion of the ramifications of the debate on gender and language research and on criticality in discursive psychology.

Academic context and concerns

Wetherell’s early discursive work (Wetherell, Stiven and Potter, 1987; Potter and Wetherell, 1987) was done at a time when the scientific canon of psychology was the target of sustained critique. Social psychology was challenged for being pervasively experimental, excessively quantitative, and overly reliant on university students as research subjects (e.g., Gergen, 1978; also see Weatherall, Gavey and Potts, 1992). The complexity of socially mediated behaviours within culture, history and politics, for example, was not being given serious consideration (Israel and Tajfel, 1972). Furthermore, feminists were contesting the claims of objectivity and neutrality in psychology where sexist assumptions permeated research designs and gender inequality was being naturalised by claims of innate female inferiority (Grady, 1981; Shields, 1975; Weisstein, 1968). Poststructuralist and postmodern ideas were being applied to psychology – a ‘discursive turn’ was underway, offering new ways of understanding the relationships between the self or subjectivity, language and power (Henrique, et al., 1984).

Wetherell et al.’s (1987) discursive study of gender inequality in the workplace was part of the critical milieu of its time. They challenged psychological research on prejudice and discrimination for being over reliant on the concepts of attitudes and personality traits. For example, negative attitudes towards women and fear of success were being used to explain gender segregation in the labour market. Attitudes and personality theoretically transcend social context, but Wetherell et al. noted the recruitment, retention and promotion of women are mediated by situational variables. Linking attitudes and personality variables directly to behaviours in complex social environments has been difficult to do. Wetherell et al. suggested that some of the problems associated with traditional psychological analyses could be resolved with a shift in research emphasis away from stable internal traits towards the systems of sense-making that people deploy in their understanding of employment opportunities.

The shift Wetherell et al. (1987) were making necessitated the development of new methods of analysis, which could deal with multiple and complex ways social objects were talked about. They proposed ‘practical ideologies’ as a unit of analysis. Practical ideologies refer to ‘the often contradictory and fragmentary complexes of notions, norms and models, which guide conduct and allow for its justification and rationalisation’ (Wetherell, et al., 1987: 60). In developing the notion of practical ideologies, Wetherell et al. drew on a broad range on theoretical influences. Speech act theory was used to highlight language as quintessentially a form of social action. The idea for notions, norms and models guiding everyday conduct was taken from ethnomethodology. The influence of poststructuralism was important for understanding that what people say is not just a reflection of their thoughts and attitudes, for example, but is inseparable from power and politics that produce possible meanings.

Wetherell et al. (1987) proposed the proper site for the investigation of practical ideologies was language-in-use. They recorded university students taking part in group discussions on attitudes towards their careers. At the time, interviews and focus groups were rarely used in social psychology. Since then, such methods have been critiqued and largely usurped in discursive psychology by studying language use in natural ecological settings, that is in situ (Edwards and Stokoe, 2004; Potter and Hepburn, 2005; 2012). Methodological limitations of researcher-generated talk aside, Wetherell et al’s analysis identified two practical ideologies – individualism and practical considerations – used by the students to discuss their careers. Those themes were mobilised flexibly in discussions about gender and employment patterns to both endorse the concept of gender equality and to deny sexism in practice. On the one hand, participants suggested it was up to individuals regardless of gender to show that they had the knowledge, experience and skills worthy of employment. On the other, there were practical considerations (e.g., lack of adequate childcare) making the employment of women a problem.

The analytic concept of practical ideologies illuminated a new aspect of discrimination – the subtle rhetorical management of talk about inequality. Gender inequality was not just a matter of sexist attitudes or flawed personality but could be studied as part and parcel of language-in-use. The notion of practical ideologies was replaced by ‘interpretative repertoires’ in Potter and Wetherell (1987). However, the notions are similar – basic conceptual analytic units for identifying the ways social objects can be variously constructed in texts and talk for different interactional ends. Interpretative repertoires are practical resources, like building blocks, for fashioning meaning fitted to interactional concerns such as accountability and personal stake and interest. Interpretative repertoires are ideological in the sense they are part of a social and moral order that is tied to historical and cultural contexts. Interpretative repertoires are conceptual units that usefully operationalise the constructive and ideological nature of descriptions – over 150 studies to date are recorded in Web of Science as using the notion of interpretative repertories, which shows its usefulness in discourse analytic work.

The critique of social psychology presented in Wetherell et al. (1987) was more fully developed in Potter and Wetherell (1987). That book further progressed a discourse analytic perspective across a broad range of p...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Figures
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: the evolution of discursive psychology From classic to contemporary themes
• PART I Epistemology and method
• 1 Interpretative repertoires, conversation analysis and being critical
• 2 Hitting ontological rock bottom Discursive psychology's respecification of the realism/relativism debate
• 3 Conversation analysis and discursive psychology Taking up the challenge of Sacks' legacy
• 4 Natural and contrived data
• 5 Questions of context Qualitative interviews as a source of knowledge
• PART II Cognition, emotion and the psychological thesaurus
• 6 What happened to post-cognitive psychology?
• 7 From Loughborough with love How discursive psychology rocked the heart of social psychology's love affair with attitudes
• 8 Discursive psychology and emotion
• 9 Recasting the psychologist's question Children's talk as social action
• 10 Seeing the inside from the outside of children's minds Displayed understanding and interactional competence
• 11 From script theory to script formulation Derek Edwards' shift from perceptual realism to the interactional-rhetorical
• PART III Social categories, identity and memory
• 12 Reorienting categories as a members' phenomena
• 13 Some relevant things about gender and other categories in discursive psychology
• 14 Dilemmas of memory The mind is not a tape recorder
• 15 A forgotten legacy? Towards a discursive psychology of the media
• PART IV Prejudice, racism and nationalism
• 16 Re-theorizing prejudice in social psychology From cognition to discourse
• 17 ‘Race stereotypes' as ‘racist’ discourse
• 18 Fact and evaluation in racist discourse revisited
• 19 Banal nationalism, postmodernism and capitalism Revisiting Billig's critique of Rorty
• Index