2H:F:FP T3SB

production and perpetuation of inequalities in society. Consequently we will discuss his approach in more detail in the next chapter, which deals specifi- cally with critical approaches in the study of language. Another branch of work known as discursive psychology is associated with Rom Harré. Harré’s work is broadly social constructionist but see Harré, 1979, and thus there are overlaps with the kinds of theoretical positions found in the discursive psychological work we have been concerned with in this chapter Edwards and Potter, 1992; Potter, 1996a. Harré has been at the forefront of the critique of the cognitive orientation of psychology 1987, and we can illustrate his position by thinking about the concept of the ‘self’. He argues that it is no longer reasonable to assume that ‘selves’ are theoretical mental entities or cognitive schemata Harré, 1979; Davis and Harré, 1990. Instead he argues that we need to study the discourse through which selves are occasioned and brought into being. In this, Harré draws from Wittgenstein’s later philosophy 1953. Wittgenstein argued that the vocabulary of the mind such as concepts and words referring to the self is defined by observations of symptoms and not of mental phenomena in themselves. His philosophy empha- sised that linguistic discourse is essentially part of an on-going social process: the uses of, and constraints over, the language of the mind and self are social derivatives which arise in human practice. Following this line of philosophy, Harré states that the theoretical mental entities the will, the self, etc., which are currently invoked to explain how people behave, should be replaced by a concern to investigate the linguistic procedures through which this mental vocabulary is used in social life e.g., Harré, 1995; see also his work on ‘account analysis’, 1997. It is at this point where Harré departs from the kinds of discursive psycho- logical research discussed in this chapter. This is because he seeks to identify the grammars of expression through which selves and other mental entities are brought into being Harré, 1989. The focus on grammar reflects his inter- est in the formal and logical properties of the ways in which psychological dis- course is used: that is, the pre-conditions of the use of psychological language. The focus on formal and logical structures of language means that investiga- tion of psychological discourse is largely viewed as a conceptual exercise, and not as a task for empirical research. His kind of discursive psychology is an exercise in logical analysis, in which the analyst tries to identify the kinds of conditions in which it makes sense to use particular kinds of psychological dis- course cf. Coulter, 1989; 1999. Moreover, Harré relies on Speech Act Theory by which to investigate these formal grammars of psychological discourse. This encourages inventing examples of discourse as an aid in this form of logical conceptual inquiry e.g., Harré, 1989. However, as we saw in Chapter 1, the reliance on intuited or made-up examples of discourse is problematic. First, it encourages analytic speculation rather than empirical investigation of actual utterances in real-life situations Schegloff, 1988b. But it also invariably offers an impoverished view of the detail and complexity of actual language use. It DISCURSIVE PSYCHOLOGY 127 is comparatively easy to address issues such as sentence structure. It is much harder, however, to anticipate the subtle interactional matters which are addressed in language use; and it is even more difficult to try to anticipate the ways in which such issues may be negotiated in the fine detail of utterance design. This is not the approach of the work we discussed earlier, which emphasises empirical investigation of the ways in which the relevance of psychological vocabularies is invoked with respect to specific interactional activities in naturally occurring real-life data. Harré’s work is important because it challenges many of the assumptions which inform not only dominant perspectives in psychology, but also common sense thinking as well. However, because it offers a form of logical or concep- tual analysis, it is less powerful than those discursive psychological studies which develop analytic claims which are grounded in the inspection of real- life data Potter and Edwards, 2003. Finally, Billig’s rhetorical psychological approach has many features in common with discursive psychology. Indeed, in some of the literature, rhetor- ical psychology and discursive psychology seemed to be used synonymously, for example, Billig, 2001b; Wiggins, 2001. For example, he rejects the assump- tions that talk merely expresses inner thought or represents the operation of determinant cognitive events. We saw the following quote in the previous chapter, but it is equally appropriate and useful here. Cognitive psychologists have assumed that thinking is a mysterious process, lying behind outward behaviour. However, the response and counter response of conversation is too quick for it to be the outward manifestation of the ‘real’ processes of thought. The remarks are the thoughts: one need not search for something extra, as if there is always something lying behind the words, which we should call the ‘thought’. Billig, 2001b: 215 Billig asks that we focus on discourse because it seems intuitively implausible that the complexity and delicacy of interactional procedures should be gener- ated by corresponding mental processes. Moreover, as rhetorical psychology argues very strongly, discourse is a form of argumentation. While we may not wish to endorse such a narrow view of interaction it has the benefit of draw- ing attention to the way language is itself the site in which we can explore psychological issues such as the causal attributions, the production of recollections, and the relevance of identity. Discursive psychology and conversation analysis Consider the studies we discussed to illustrate discursive psychology: the use of ‘I think’ prefaces to statements or accounts, ‘I dunno’ lack of knowledge claims, and the ways in which recollections can be formulated. It was apparent 128 CONVERSATION ANALYSIS AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS