This article considers the different approaches to cognition in conversation analysis and discursive psychology. Its points are illustrated through a critical but appreciative consideration of an article by Drew in which he uses conversation analysis to identify ‘cognitive moments’ in interaction. Problems are identified with Drew’s analysis and the conclusions he draws. In particular, he a) presupposes a dualistic division between depth and surface; b) makes circular inferences from conventional conversational patterns to underlying cognitive entities; c) presupposes that the underlying (...) cognitive entities influence conduct. It is argued that none of these things is required by conversation analysis; rather Drew is imposing cognitivist assumptions on conversational materials. Discursive psychology’s approach focuses on cognitive issues in terms of how they are constructed and oriented to in interaction; its virtues are pressed. (shrink)

Discursive psychology approaches discourse not as the product or expression of thoughts or mental states lying behind or beneath it, but as a domain of public accountability in which psychological states are made relevant. DP draws heavily on conversation analysis in examining in close empirical detail how ostensibly psychological themes are handled and managed as part of talk’s everyday interactional business. A brief worked example is offered, in which the intentionality of a person’s actions is handled in the course of (...) police interrogation, in ways that perform police work. Degrees of intentionality are partialled out with regard to specific actions or components of actions, and with regard to how actions are described in ways that map onto how crime categories are defined in law. Cognitive states are generally relevant in discourse in the same manner, as participants’ concerns with regard to action categories and accountability on and for the occasions they are invoked. (shrink)

In this paper, we take a critical discourse analytic approach to short notes written at the end of exam papers by Iranian students asking for a higher score. Such notes are sometimes written when the student has a feeling that they might fail the exam as a result of not providing satisfactory answers to questions. We consider this to be a manipulative strategy employed by these students to control their professors. Manipulation, however, is often considered an illegitimate source of power (...) abuse by people having the higher hand in unequal power relations [Van Dijk, T.A.. Discourse and manipulation. Discourse & Society, 17, 359–383]. The present paper argues for a new understanding of this important concept in the critical discourse analysis tradition by highlighting manipulative strategies used by less powerful people. The analysis of 71 such notes written by students in two Iranian universities suggests that the students, as people in a lower position of power, resorted to certain manipulative strategies to exert influence on professors, people in a higher position of power. Four of the most frequent strategies identified in the data will be discussed: tapping into religious beliefs; highlighting personal and social problems as causes for inability to prepare for the exam; referring to negative consequences for failing the exam, and therefore tapping into the examiner's conscience; and resorting to honorific terms to address the examiner. This study would have implications for application of CDA in Higher Education. (shrink)

This article presents the position for a Psychoanalytic Discursive Psychology. This position combines two elements: an action-theory of language, derived from Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, and a revised Freudian concept of repression. According to Wittgenstein and most contemporary discursive psychologists, language is to be understood as action, rather than being assumed to be an outward expression of inner, unobservable cognitive processes. However, a critical approach demands more than an interactional analysis of language acts: it requires an analysis of ideology. Because what (...) is left unsaid can be as ideologically important as what is said, there is a need to investigate socially reproduced unconsciousness. This means taking the notion of repression seriously. Whereas Freud imagined repression to be an inner psychic process, it can, by contrast, be seen as an activity that is constituted within everyday language. In this respect, language is fundamentally both expressive and repressive. The social and psychological significance of a Psychoanalytic Discursive Psychology are discussed. (shrink)