Discourse and Social Psychology: Beyond Attitudes and Behaviour

Although much has been written about discourse analysis in recent years, little of it has been intelligible to the average undergraduate or even post graduate student. It has become a field in which terminological confusions abound and a bewildering variety of theoretical perspectives compete.

This book, which is aimed at the advanced undergraduate student, is the first systematic and comprehensible introduction to the theory and application of discourse analysis within the field of social psychology and other related disciplines.

In the first chapter of the book, the theoretical roots of discourse analysis in linguistic philosophy, ethnomethodology and semiotics are described. Chapter Two overviews the perspective of discourse analysis and illustrates its utility in studying attitudes. The following five substantive chapters deal with concepts which are at the heart of the study of social psychology: rules, accounts, the self, categories and social representations. Chapter Eight then details the practical stages through which research on 'social texts' progresses and discusses the issue of validity. The concluding chapter tackles some broader, controversial issues and identifies future research directions, and an exhaustive bibliography acquaints the student with all the relevant literature in the field.

The text is illustrated throughout with examples from written and spoken discourse: newspaper accounts of riots, scientists' conference presentations, murder confessions and people's everyday explanations of racial inequality as well as recordings of ubiquitous ordinary conversations. The authors avoid jargon at all times, even when introducing complex theoretical issues.

Discourse and Social Psychology will be indispensable reading for undergraduates and teachers in the fields of social psychology and communications studies, but will also be relevant to the discipline of sociology, linguistics, anthropology, semiotics, literary studies and history.

'Potter and Wetherell have genuinely presented us with a different way of working in social psychology. The book's clarity means that it has the power to influence a lot of people ill-at-ease with traditional social psychology but unimpressed with (or simply bewildered by) other alternatives on offer. It could rescue social psychology from the sterility of the laboratory and its traditional mentalism' - Charles Antaki, The Times Higher Education Supplement

Jonathan Potter is Professor of Discourse Analysis and Dean of the School of Social, Political and Geographical Sciences at Loughborough University. He has studied topics such as scientific argumentation, current affairs television, riots, racism, relationship counselling and child protection helplines. His main focus recently has been on the study of helpline interaction, on interaction during family mealtimes, on the conceptualization of cognition in interaction research, and on issues of psychology and institutions. He a world authority on qualitative methods and has written on discourse analysis and discursive psychology, focus groups, the study of psychological issues. Recently has raised questions about the over-reliance of social scientists on open-ended qualitative interviews. He has taught workshops and short courses on analysis in 10 different countries.

Margaret Wetherell is Professor of Social Psychology at the Open University, UK and Director of the Economic and Social Research Council Programme on Identities and Social Action.