DD307 Open University Social Psychology - Discursive Psychology notes

DD307 Open University Social Psychology - Discursive Psychology notes

1. Assumptions & definitions

   • Discourse - the way particular meanings are constructed w/in language
   • Not psychology of language - but how people use language in everyday lives
   • Language not neutral - vehicle to present different versions of objects which will be context dependent
     • DP offers analysis of what language does & how people use it to present & legitimise a certain stance on given topic
   • Discourse Analysis - how people use language to present version of event - will often maintain/construct particular position
   • Linguistic devices
     • P&W - used by m/c New Zealanders to position themselves as non-prejudice re Polynesian immigrants
     • P&W - show how prejudice can become justified via language used
       • & continue in our social interactions
   • Rhetorical devices
     • Strategies used to persuade others of a specific viewpoint

2. Foucault

   • Constructing regulative norms
     • Discursively constitute some things as acceptable, others deviant
     • & construct w/in that linguistic distinction the incitement to self-regulate, fit-in, be normal
   • Power
     • Not in hands of powerful & oppress the masses
     • But - multiplicity of discursive practices that fabricates & positions subjects
     • Power & ideology no longer separated from & operating on individuals but interwoven into subject positions a person takes up & are mediated by language

3. Tuffin - Understanding Critical Psychology

   • Thru language we offer:
     • Justifications & explanations
       • That take into a/c how others may judge our actions, motives & intentions
     • We provide a/c's & descriptions
       • That inevitably attend to questions of responsibility, blame & accountability
     • We criticise, cajole & counsel
       • Rarely from perspective of neutrality or disinterest
         • We're psychologically invested in the matters we comment on
   • Action orientation of language use
     • We achieve much thru the complex ways we're able to structure & manage talk/text
     • Much important social business transacted in & thru language
   • Discursive analysis
     • 1) Construction
       • How a/c is put together; what linguistic resources - interpretive repertoires?
         • Packages of ideas useful for making sense of & evaluating the world
     • 2) Function
       • Active/'doing' element
       • Things achieved by particular characterisations, evaluation, descrption
       • Version of events examined for interpersonal & psychological achievements
         • e.g. accountability, blame, causality
       • Important re attributions & assignment of responsibility for events w/in particular way a/c constructed
     • 3) Variability
       • Natural feature of language use
       • Unique r'ship w/ function
       • Alternative a/c's see to do different business
       • Important as highlights context
   • Epistemological difference (from cog. soc.)
     • Suggests emotion, attributes, memories etc should be regarded as being
       • constituted in & thru the ways in which they're talked/written about
     • DP examines ways in which language contributes to shared understandings of how categories formulated in particular ways
     • Recognising talking about emotion in 1 way will have particular effects, while talking about it in another way has another effect
     • Psychological knowledge studied interactionally, conversationally & relationally
       • Emotion becomes social practice produces interactionally
     • Emphasis & orientation move from interior to exterior
       • What was previously inferred, now becomes part of what is able to be captured & studied as part of daily social practice
   • Shotland & Shaw - Bystander
     • Staged attack
     • R'ship between woman & her attacker manipulated
       • "Get away from me - I don't know who you are"
       • "Get away from me - I don't know why I married you"
     • Demo power of langauge
       • to construct (stranger or spouse)
     • Study v. constrained in its exam of language
       • Just used to manipulate (controlled by experimenter) & then discarded
       • Would've been good to get a/c's from Ps to understand their experience more fully
   • How characterise actions of suicide bomber?
     • Terrorism or martyrdom?
       • Brave or foolhardy?
     • Single word has significant effect on what else we say
       • Language provides ability to construct very separate psychological realities
         • Would either encourage condemnation or aggrandisement
         • Language never neutral
           • Never simply telling it how it is
           • Reality always socially constructed - our knowledge of events comes to us thru the words we use when describing 'behaviour'
   • Emotion
     • Nature of emotion found in way which they're talked about
       • Jealously
         • Not located in damaged bit of the heart
           • Nor at physiological or cognitive level
         • Located & constructed discursively
           • i.e. how is it talked about?
     • Talk does more than describe emotion
       • it contributes to the nature of what we understand the experience of jealousy to be
         • e.g. how words in Shakespeare play effect us