Discursive Psychology

by Derek Edwards, Jonathan Potter

This accessible text introduces the key elements of a discursive approach to psychology. This focuses on how discourse - naturally occurring talk and text - can be studied and understood as the accomplishment of social action . Building on discourse analysis, the authors present an integrated discursive action model which leads to a radical reworking of some of psychology′s most central concepts - language, cognition, truth, knowledge and reality. The implications of a discursive perspective for such topics are explored alongside a sustained argument against the perceptual-cognitivist emphasis that currently dominates psychology. A particular theme is the reconceptualization of memory and attribution. The authors exam

Genres: Psychology

208 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1992

Reviews

[violet · Rating 4 out of 5]

“It is a central feature of discursive psychology that it treats both external reality and mental states as participants’ concerns: not as psychologically prior phenomena, as inputs or explanations of talk’s content, but rather as phenomena that are themselves open to constructive description and implication, by participants, as parts of discursive actions.”

A fairly radical re-orientation of contemporary psychological concepts, though, as the authors note, potentially not radical enough. As someone with a distaste for cognitivism I appreciated the approach of taking the ‘effects’ of ‘cognitive processes’ as the starting point for analysis, and making no assumptions about their underlying causes. This was fairly readable - coming from more ‘traditional’ theory-oriented psychology texts I didn’t expect the extended treatment of case studies at all, though it wasn’t unwelcome. Next is probably going to be Edwards’ Discourse and Cognition for a deeper look at how the discursive approach can offer coherent alternatives to the prevailing cognitivist understanding of mental phenomena.

[Titus Hjelm]

For a sociologist interested in discourse analysis, Edwards & Potter spend a bit too much time in this book grinding their axe with cognitive psychology. If you've read Potter's 'Representing Reality', there's not much new here. That book is, I'd say, more important for non-psychologist discourse analysts.

[Ivan Kapersky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had to read Potter for a class. Potter delivers the most accurate definition of Discourse analysis and describes how can be use as accurate method for qualitative investigations in psychology.

[Peace Nick]

read as far as u can go , go as far as u you can understand what u Read