Discourse and Social Psychology: Beyond Attitudes and Behaviour

by Jonathan Potter, Margaret Wetherell

`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 This book is the first systematic and accessible introduction to the theory and application of discourse analysis within the field of social psychology. Discourse and Social Psychology includes chapters on the

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Research

256 pages, Hardcover

First published April 22, 1987

Reviews

[Cristina Costea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really helpful introduction to discourse analysis

[Diana180]

I never had the clearest idea about what the discourse psychologists regarded as their field and why - application of DA to social psychology data? use of social psychology ideas in DA? did they have to justify being located in psychology departments? - and I still don't quite, but page by page this book is brilliant, and reframes much of the pragmatics and research methods canon very well. I kept coming across references I should have known but didn't. There is a good chapter near the end on how to conduct a project.

[Titus Hjelm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite being over two decades old now and somewhat dated, this is still one of the more lucid introductions to discourse analysis. Although--as the title suggests--the emphasis is on social psychology, Potter & Wetherell's ideas have since branched out to other fields as well (sociology, anthropology, etc.). Although there are quite a few introductions to discursive psychology nowadays, I wouldn't mind seeing an updated edition of this one.