From Potter, 1997: 151 discourse analysis a comparative and critical introduction by robin wooffitt

On the basis of these remarks, we can outline areas for future research. First, the use of ‘I dunno’ does not mark cognitive uncertainty or whatever; rather it constitutes interactional activity. It works at least in these data as a device to attend to sensitive or delicate matters generated in interaction. We can ask then: what other kinds of work does it do, if any? Second, these data suggest that there may be a sequential basis to the use of ‘I dunno’ which requires more extensive study. Do ‘I dunno’ formulations cluster in particular kinds of activity sequences? Moreover, in the four extracts discussed in this section, ‘I dunno’ claims tend to preface other activities such as complaining, account- ing, explaining, and so on. Is this structural positioning echoed in the use of ‘I dunno’ claims in other instances of talk-in-interaction? These suggestions are based on preliminary observations; but they demonstrate the kind of empiri- cal inquiries which are opened up if we treat ‘I dunno’ formulations – or other reports of ostensibly cognitive events – as activities in interaction, rather than representations of psychological states. Summary • Discursive psychology grew out of discourse analytic interest in the ways in which the realm of ostensibly cognitive phenomena were invoked, or their relevance oriented to, in the production of persuasive or factually oriented discourse. • Discursive psychology treats avowals of cognitive phenomena as activi- ties in interaction, rather than representations of psychological states. • It has been used to explore, among other topics, naturally occurring con- versational rememberings, social identity, attitudes, and formulations of personal knowledge. The range and varieties of discursive psychology Discursive psychology rejects the traditional cognitivist paradigm in psychology which treats inner mental processes as the proper topic for empirical research and theorising. From this dominant perspective, discourses of all kinds – talk and texts – are taken simply as expressing or representing in various ways the workings of these inner mental processes. Discursive psychologists, however, treat discourse as the proper topic for research. They take seriously the … ethnomethodological injunction to treat what cognitivists take to be mental objects as things whose ‘reality’ is their invocation in whatever human activities they appear in – in ‘work talk, ‘intimate talk’ and ‘casual talk’ as much as in ‘scientific talk’. Condor and Antaki, 1997: 338; original italics DISCURSIVE PSYCHOLOGY 125 Potter and Edwards 2003 outline three strands of discursive psychological research. First, there is an attempt to critique traditional approaches, and to offer an alternative in which psychological topics are re-cast as features of verbal and textual activities. So, for example, there is a shift from thinking about ‘memory’ as a set of storage facilities hardwired into the physiological structures of the brain, towards the study of discourse in which people offer recollections. Second, there is the study of the psychological thesaurus: the ways in which psychological terms are used to perform work in discourse. So, our observations on the use of ‘I think’ and ‘I dunno’ would fall into this category. Finally, there is the study of the ways in which discourse is used to manage implied psychological themes. Think about the studies of the organisa- tion of factual or authoritative language that we discussed in the previous chapter. These revealed some of the kinds of devices and resources through which speakers manage others’ inferences about their agency, personality, social com- petence and so on. But these issues are addressed as a feature of routine verbal interaction concerned with other matters, such as the authority and reliability of a witness to a claimed paranormal experience can be established by what seems to be a ‘mere’ description of the utterances of another witness. Studies in discursive psychology have dealt with a wide range of topics. In addition to the research on memory formulations outlined in this and earlier chapters, there have been studies of emotion discourse Edwards, 1999, eval- uations of food preferences Wiggins, 2001; Wiggins et al, 2001, and the talk of sex offenders Auburn and Lea, 2003 and interaction in police questioning of suspects Auburn et al, 1999. There has been a sustained critical reap- praisal of attribution theory and script theory which takes as its point of departure the observation that formulations of events and causes are produced with respect to interactional or inferential concerns Edwards, 1994; 1995a; Potter and Edwards, 1990. Finally, there are a number of studies of the ways in which the relevance of characterisations of identity may be established in talk Antaki and Widdicombe, 1998; Antaki et al, 1996; Edwards, 1991; Nikander, 2002; Widdicombe, 1993; Widdicombe and Wooffitt, 1990, 1995. What is consistent throughout this body of research is the use of findings from conversation analytic studies of mundane interaction, and the use of some of the methodological steps associated with CA; we will explore this relationship between CA and discursive psychology more fully in a later section. But it is important to note that there are other approaches which are also called discursive psychology which, although sharing many of the broader goals of the kinds of work discussed here, have very different assumptions and methodological procedures. For example, Ian Parker is a critical psychologist who has described his work as a form of discursive psychology Parker, 1997. His work draws heavily from European social theorists and philosophers, such as Foucault and Derrida, as well as more traditional Marxist analyses of capitalist society. Parker’s work is strongly informed by emancipatory con- cerns: he wants psychology to play a role in understanding and alleviating the 126 CONVERSATION ANALYSIS AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS 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