Discursive Psychology

Performative Acts of Autism

by Jessica Nina Lester

Co-Authored with Trena M. Paulus

Relatively little research has aimed to understand autism from an emic perspective. The majority of studies examining... more Relatively little research has aimed to understand autism from an emic perspective. The majority of studies examining the organization of the talk of individuals with autism presume that autism organizes discourse rather than examine ways in which talk itself constructs the notion of autism. This study explored the meanings of autism performed in and through the talk of the parents of children with autism and their therapists. Drawing from a larger ethnographic study, we report on findings generated from interview data with parents and therapists. Situating this study within a discursive psychology framework, we attend to the ways in which ‘normality’ and ‘abnormality’ are performed, drawing upon critical notions of disability, poststructural understandings of discourse, and conversation analysis. We point to the importance of situating the construction of an ‘ordered’ or ‘disordered’ body in relationship to the exclusionary practices and policies that individuals with autism and those close to them experience daily.

Misyurov D.A. Dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas // Credo New. 2012. №2

by Dmitry Misyurov

The article suggests dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas: formula with... more The article suggests dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas: formula with dominant and the non-dominant elements; universal formula; formula with symbolic weight of elements; tautological formula. For example, it suggests an opportunity to use the dialectical formulas for modeling and artificial intelligence creation, etc.

Villains, Victims, and the Financial Crisis: Positioning Identities through Descriptions

by Andrea Whittle

Chapter 7, in Constructing Identity in and around Organizations
Edited by Majken Schultz, Steve Maguire, Ann Langley, and Haridimos Tsoukas (Oxford University Press, 2012)

This chapter draws insights from the field of Discursive
Psychology (DP) to examine the identity positioning... more This chapter draws insights from the field of Discursive
Psychology (DP) to examine the identity positioning employed in the
narratives surrounding the financial crisis. Existing narrative, discursive,
and communicative approaches to studying identity have tended
to focus on more or less explicit identity-talk, where participants produce
direct accounts of themselves or others. What is less well understood
is how descriptions of objects, actions, and events perform
identity work. This chapter contributes by showing how DP enables
us to understand how apparently “neutral” and “factual” descriptive
accounts act as a form of identity positioning.We focus our analysis on
the identity positions constructed during a public hearing involving
senior banking executives in the United Kingdom. The analysis suggests
that two competing identities, victim and villain, were constructed for
the bankers in the dialogue between the witnesses (bankers) and the
questioners (politicians).We argue that apparently neutral descriptions
of events, such as accounts of what happened and why, can represent
methods of positioning identity.We propose that a “discursive devices”
approach, inspired by DP, contributes to the understanding of identity
positioning by highlighting the power of micro-linguistic tools in laying
out the moral landscape of the characters involved in the description.
We conclude by arguing that the characters and stories
surrounding the financial crisis are important because they acted to
shape how the crisis was made sense of and acted upon.

Bankers in the Dock: Moral Storytelling in Action

by Andrea Whittle

Human Relations January 2012 vol. 65 no. 1 111-139

This article draws on insights from a variety of fields, including discursive psychology, ethnomethodology, dramatism,... more This article draws on insights from a variety of fields, including discursive psychology, ethnomethodology, dramatism, rhetoric, ante-narrative analysis and conversation analysis, to examine the discursive devices employed in the storytelling surrounding the recent financial crisis. Discursive devices refer to the linguistic styles, phrases, tropes and figures of speech that, we propose, are central to the development of a compelling story. We focus our analysis on the moral stories constructed during a public hearing involving senior banking executives in the UK. The analysis suggests that two competing storylines were used by the bankers and their questioners to emplot the events preceding the financial crisis. We propose that a discursive devices approach contributes to the understanding of storytelling by highlighting the power of micro-linguistic tools in laying out the moral landscape of the story. We argue that the stories surrounding the financial crisis are important because they shaped how the crisis was made sense of and acted upon.

The Language of Interests: The Contribution of Discursive Psychology

by Andrea Whittle

Human Relations March 2011 vol. 64 no. 3 415-435

In this article we outline the contribution of the field of Discursive Psychology (DP) for the understanding of... more In this article we outline the contribution of the field of Discursive Psychology (DP) for the understanding of interests in organization studies. We discuss the limitations of viewing interests and motives as cognitive states, essential drivers of action and explanatory variables. Following DP, we propose to view interests and motives as a key component of meaningful social practice, making interests and motives a topic for analysis rather than resource for explanation. DP offers a distinct approach to analyzing the accounts that people make about their interests in a particular state of affairs, their stake in a particular situation, or their motive in pursuing a particular course of action. To illustrate our argument, we analyze two data extracts from a qualitative study of a UK public-private partnership. By illustrating the way in which interests are dealt with in different interactional situations, we seek to contribute by outlining a more sophisticated and insightful way of understanding interests within organization studies.

Translating Management Ideas: A Discursive Devices Analysis

by Andrea Whittle

Organization Studies February 2011 vol. 32 no. 2 187-210

This paper puts forward a discursive devices approach to analysing the linguistic practices involved in the... more This paper puts forward a discursive devices approach to analysing the linguistic practices involved in the translation of management ideas. The paper draws on empirical data from a study of a quality improvement initiative in a UK public—private partnership. To illustrate our argument, we examine the discursive devices skilfully employed by two change champions during a training session to introduce staff to the new quality regime. Drawing insights from the field of discursive psychology, we analyse how a variety of discursive devices, such as footing, are employed to translate the idea during dialogue between sellers and recipients. We suggest that skilful variation can play a relevant role in the translation of management ideas.

Interpretation of Psychological Concepts in Wittgenstein

by Antonio Bova

Childs Im not X I just want Y 2012

by Carrie Childs

"Everyone may think whatever they like but scientists...": Or how and to what end plant scientists manage the science-society relationship

by Karen Mogendorff

Co-authors are H. te Molder, B. Gremmen & C. van Woerkum, published online in Science Communication, 22th of March 2012

Analiza discursului şi studiul atitudinilor: o introducere în psihologia socială discursivă

by Cristian Tileaga

Representing the ‘Other’: A Discursive Analysis of Prejudice and Moral Exclusion in Talk about Romanies

by Cristian Tileaga

Political accountability, public constitution of recent past and the collective memory of socio-political events: a discursive analysis

by Cristian Tileaga

Inequality in action

by Cristian Tileaga

with Jonathan Potter and Alexa Hepburn

Competing agendas in upstream engagement meetings between celiac disease experts and patients

by Mario Veen

This article examines discussions between innovators and patient users about emergent medical technologies in the... more This article examines discussions between innovators and patient users about emergent medical technologies in the field of celiac disease. Using discursive psychology and conversation analysis, the authors analyze participants’ talk with regard to the social activities performed. They find that the topical agenda, preference structure, and presuppositions incorporated in the innovators’ questions restrict patients’ scope for saying things in and on their own terms. Not participants’ intentions per se but what the questions indirectly communicate profoundly shapes the agenda of these meetings. This may explain why some of the difficulties of innovator-user interaction are persistent and hard to pinpoint.

Out of Africa: Accounting for refugee policy and the language of causal attribution

by Scott Hanson-Easey

Hanson-Easey & Augoustinos (2010)
Discourse & Society
21(3) 295–323
© The Author(s) 2010
Reprints and permission: sagepub.
co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0957926509360744
http://das.sagepub.com

The words of political elites have the potential to play a significant role in the constitution and proliferation of... more The words of political elites have the potential to play a significant role in the constitution and proliferation of racist discourse, especially when this discourse has the nuanced linguistic characteristics of ‘new racism’. This article examines the political rhetoric deployed in the articulation and defence of contentious government policy on Sudanese humanitarian refugee quotas in media interviews. Utilizing critical discourse analysis, we analyse a corpus of seven political
interviews and identify a number of pervasive discursive features. These include descriptions, categories and multidimensional causal narratives that characterize the Sudanese as young, violent (i.e. gang members) and uneducated; the construction of ‘culture as cause’ narrative; and the differential orientation to the term race. Through our analysis, we show how causal inference and category description function multifariously in political discourse, contending with situated issues of policy justification, accusations of racism and the allocation of blame which exclusively rests with African refugees. The role of causal formulations in racist discourse is discussed.

Ideological_Dilemmas-_Negotiating_Interpretative_Repertoires_in_Digital_Economy_Britain

by Andrew Chatora

Paper presented at the Media, Communication & Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA) Conference held at Bedfordshire University - January 2012.

This paper explores the ways in which cross-generational consumers of music construct their identities and situate... more This paper explores the ways in which cross-generational consumers of music construct their identities and situate their music downloading and file sharing practices, in what has become a mundane activity. A social psychological form of discourse analysis: ideological dilemmas of everyday thinking, (Billig et al 1988) is used to investigate the interpretative repertoires (Potter & Wetherell, 1987) consumers drew on as they construct their identities in justifying an embedded practice. Throughout data collection, consumers demonstrated; inconsistent, contradictory and shifting interpretative repertoires in their speech, through nuanced, situated statements, which presents the basis for analysis in this paper. Equally, it is pertinent to analyse how intergenerational consumers reconcile with inconsistencies between interpretative repertoires in order to manage ideological dilemmas. The study draws on focus groups, an online survey and individual interviews with consumers from different generations, as it seeks to address consumers’ uses of digital technologies and the potential threat of the 2010 Digital Economy Act. Theoretical ideas located in social constructionisim, discourse and social psychology, postulated by Vivien Burr (2003) and Potter & Wetherell’ (1987) inform this study, which seeks to investigate how sense can be made from social behaviour. The study will determine whether the age factor does make a difference in terms of music downloading and illegal file sharing, and concludes by suggesting how the music industries and the state needs to respond in the face of technology induced changes.

The Discursive Construction of Autism: Contingent Meanings of Autism and Therapeutic Talk

by Jessica Nina Lester

Exploring the borders of cognitive and discursive psychology: A methodological reconceptualization of cognition and discourse.

by Jessica Nina Lester

Published in Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology

Division and Rejection: From the Personification of the Gulf Conflict to the Demonization of Saddam Hussein Luisa Martín Rojo Discourse Society January 1995 vol. 6 no. 1 49-80

by Luisa Martín Rojo

This paper analyses the process of exclusion of Saddam Hussein, in a Spanish newspaper, El País, in the period just... more This paper analyses the process of exclusion of Saddam Hussein, in a Spanish newspaper, El País, in the period just before the Gulf War. This exclusion procedure is articulated on two axes: division and rejection (Foucault, 1964). `Division' means establishing an inclusive us and an exclusive them, in this case, him. This move therefore entails a personification of the conflict, which produces immediate feelings of identification or rejection, and simplifies how the war is understood. Both effects are reinforced by the second move of the exclusion procedure: `rejection'. Once the two camps are established an imaginary dimension, related to the ideology of consensus and ethnic prejudices, is evoked in order to create an image of Saddam Hussein in which he plays the stranger, the irrational being, the madman, the beast and, ultimately, the personification of evil. These are the villain's attributes in the fairy tale of the just war (Lakoff, 1992), which is the script of the event activated by the newspaper for the conceptualization of the conflict and its protagonists. On the other hand, a positive image is created for a unique and ideological us, in which, as readers, we are included and absorbed.

Who is a “legitimate participant” in multilingual classrooms? Essentialising and naturalising culture. In Martin Rojo COnsrtucting inequality in multilingual classrooms. See books

by Luisa Martín Rojo