Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Discourse

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
The Palgrave Encyclopedia of the Possible

  • 203 Accesses

Abstract

“Discourse” is a word that one comes across frequently. It finds a home in empirical research and media alike, but it is a term that is not always clearly defined. This entry will offer one way that one can understand discourse, that is through the lens of discursive psychology. The overarching argument is in favor of an expansive understanding of the possibilities of studying discourse: If it can be uttered, written, or expressed in another format then it can be empirically researched. Through an appropriate analytic lens, it is much more empirically and materially tangible than is often appreciated. The first part covers what a discursive psychological understanding of discourse entails, and a short explanation of what discursive psychology is. The second part is an overview of various contexts where discursive psychology has contributed to the study of discourse. In the final section I briefly discuss some possible areas – so far relatively absent in discursive research – of study using a discursive approach, particularly in the context of studying the discursive construction of deductive logic.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 849.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 899.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. 1.

    “Would the data be the same, or be there at all, if the researcher got run over on the way to work?” (Potter 2002, p. 541). In other words, for the data to pass this test its existence needs to be independent of the researcher’s actions.

  2. 2.

    Or, as Edwards and Potter (2005, p. 241) say, the “psychological thesaurus.”

  3. 3.

    This dimension of DP is closely aligned with CA, and the disciplinary boundary here is more blurred. Hence the citations here are from conversation analytic work, but bear relevance for DP.

  4. 4.

    For an overview of various traditions of studying political discourse, see Condor et al. (2013).

  5. 5.

    Non-standard as understood by Feyerabend (2010) and Kuhn (2012), whose critiques of “science,” in their cases, more specifically referred to the orthodox way of doing science.

References

  • Abell, J., Condor, S., Lowe, R. D., Gibson, S., & Stevenson, C. (2007). Who ate all the pride? Patriotic sentiment and English National Football Support. Nations and Nationalism, 13(1), 97–116.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Andreouli, E. (2021). Lay rhetoric on Brexit. In M. A. Demasi, S. Burke, & C. Tileagă (Eds.), Political communication: Discursive perspectives (pp. 63–87). Cham: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Antaki, C., & Widdicombe, S. (1998). Identities in talk. London: SAGE.

    Google Scholar 

  • Augoustinos, M., & Every, D. (2007). The language of “race” and prejudice: A discourse of denial, reason, and liberal-practical politics. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 26(2), 123–141.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Billig, M. (1987). Arguing and thinking: A rhetorical approach to social psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Billig, M. (1988). The notion of ‘prejudice’: Some rhetorical and ideological aspects. Text & Talk, 8(1–2), 91–110.

    Google Scholar 

  • Billig, M. (1989). The argumentative nature of holding strong views: A case study. European Journal of Social Psychology, 19, 203–223.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Billig, M. (1996). Arguing and thinking – A rhetorical approach to social psychology (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Billig, M. (2001). Humour and hatred: The racist jokes of the Ku Klux Klan. Discourse & Society, 12(3), 267–289.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Billig, M. (2009). Discursive psychology, rhetoric and the issue of agency. [Texte anglais original]. Semen. Revue de sémio-linguistique des textes et discours, (27).

    Google Scholar 

  • Billig, M. (2013). Learn to write badly: How to succeed in the social sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Billig, M. (2019). More examples, less theory. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Billig, M. (2021). Rhetorical Uses of Precise Numbers and Semi-magical Round Numbers in Political Discourse about COVID-19: Examples from the Government of the United Kingdom. Discourse & Society, 32(5), 542–558. https://doi.org/10.1177/09579265211013115.

  • Børlie, L. M., & Goodman, S. (2021). Presenting support for refugees as naivety: Responses to positive media reports about refugees. In M. A. Demasi, S. Burke, & C. Tileagă (Eds.), Political communication: Discursive perspectives (pp. 233–257). Cham: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burke, S. (2018). The discursive “othering” of Jews and Muslims in the Britain first solidarity patrol. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, 28(5), 365–377.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burke, S., & Demasi, M. A. (2021). “This country will be big racist one day”: Extreme prejudice as reasoned discourse in face-to-face interactions. In M. A. Demasi, S. Burke, & C. Tileagă (Eds.), Political communication: Discursive perspectives (pp. 205–229). Cham: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burke, S., & McGeechan, G. (2020). ‘It’s not only business or embarrassment’: Justifying non-attendance of cervical screening on social media discussions. The Qualitative Methods in Psychology Section Bulletin, 29, 22–31.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burke, S., Diba, P., & Antonopoulos, G. (2020). “You sick, twisted messes”: The use of argument and reasoning in islamophobic and anti-semitic discussions on Facebook. Discourse & Society, 31(4), 374–389.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Byford, J. (2006). ‘Serbs never hated the Jews’: The denial of antisemitism in Serbian orthodox Christian culture. Patterns of Prejudice, 40(2), 159–180.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Byford, J. (2011). Conspiracy theories: A critical introduction. UK: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carr, P. (2021). Extending the boundaries of political communication: How ideology can be examined in super-rich television documentaries using discursive psychology. In M. A. Demasi, S. Burke, & C. Tileagă (Eds.), Political communication: Discursive perspectives (pp. 89–114). Cham: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Condor, S. (2000). Pride and prejudice: Identity management in English people’s talk about ‘this country’. Discourse & Society, 11(2), 175–205.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Condor, S., Tileagă, C., & Billig, M. (2013). Political rhetoric. In L. Huddy, D. O. Sears, & J. S. Levy (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of political psychology (2nd ed., pp. 262–297). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Demasi, M. A. (2019). Facts as social action in political debates about the European Union. Political Psychology, 40(1), 3–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Demasi, M. A., & Tileagă, C. (2019). Rhetoric of derisive laughter in political debates on the EU. Qualitative Psychology. https://psycnet.apa.org/search/display?id=8c8b1f3f-9d8d-adcb-233bf799249d81d0&recordId=1&tab=PA&page=1&display=25&sort=PublicationYearMSSort%20desc,AuthorSort%20asc&sr=1.

    Google Scholar 

  • Demasi, M. A., Burke, S., & Tileagă, C. (2021). Political communication: Discursive perspectives. Cham: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Edwards, D. (1997). Discourse and cognition. London: SAGE.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Edwards, D. (1999). Emotion discourse. Culture & Psychology, 5(3), 271–291.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edwards, D. (2012). Discursive and scientific psychology. British Journal of Social Psychology, 51(3), 425–435.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edwards, D., & Mercer, N. (1987). Common knowledge: The development of understanding in the classroom. Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Edwards, D., & Potter, J. (1992). Discursive psychology. London: SAGE.

    Google Scholar 

  • Edwards, D., & Potter, J. (1993). Language and causation: A discursive action model of description and attribution. Psychological Review, 100(1), 23–41.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edwards, D., & Potter, J. (2005). Discursive psychology, mental states and descriptions. In H. E. te Molder & J. Potter (Eds.), Conversation and cognition (pp. 241–259). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Feyerabend, P. (2010). Against method (4th ed.). London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Figgou, L., & Anagnostopoulou, D. (2021). Consensual politics and pragmatism in parliamentary discourse on the ‘refugee issue’. In M. A. Demasi, S. Burke, & C. Tileagă (Eds.), Political communication: Discursive perspectives (pp. 259–282). Cham: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, S. (2013). Milgram’s obedience experiments: A rhetorical analysis. British Journal of Social Psychology, 52(2), 290–309.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, S. (2019). Arguing, obeying and defying: A rhetorical perspective on Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, S. (2021). Accusations and denials of prejudice in dialogical context. In M. A. Demasi, S. Burke, & C. Tileagă (Eds.), Political communication: Discursive perspectives (pp. 35–62). Cham: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilbert, G. N., & Mulkay, M. (1984). Opening Pandora’s box: A sociological analysis of scientists’ discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goodman, S., & Burke, S. (2010). “Oh you don’t want asylum seekers, oh you’re just racist”: A discursive analysis of discussions about whether it’s racist to oppose asylum seeking. Discourse & Society, 25(3), 32–49.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hepburn, A., & Potter, J. (2011). Designing the recipient: Some practices that manage advice resistance in institutional settings. Social Psychology Quarterly, 74, 216–241.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heritage, J. (2013). Epistemics in conversation. In J. Sidnell & T. Stivers (Eds.), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 370–394). Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huma, B., Alexander, M., Stokoe, E., & Tileagă, C. (2020). Introduction to special issue on discursive psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 17(3), 313–335.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kuhn, T. S. (2012). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Lennon, H. W., & Kilby, L. (2021). A multimodal discourse analysis of ‘Brexit’: Flagging the nation in political cartoons. In M. A. Demasi, S. Burke, & C. Tileagă (Eds.), Political communication: Discursive perspectives (pp. 115–146). Cham: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Linell, P. (2009). Rethinking language, mind and world dialogically: Interactional and contextual theories of human sense-making. Greenwich: Information Age Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marková, I. (2000). Amédée or how to get rid of it: Social representations from a dialogical perspective. Culture & Psychology, 6(4), 419–460.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meredith, J., & Richardson, E. (2019). The use of the political categories of Brexiter and Remainer in online comments about the EU referendum. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 29(1), 43–55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67(4), 371.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority. London: Tavistock.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murray, A. J. (2021). The unsaid as expressive and repressive political communication: Examining slippery talk about paid domestic labour in post-apartheid South Africa. In M. A. Demasi, S. Burke, & C. Tileagă (Eds.), Political communication: Discursive perspectives (pp. 283–302). Cham: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pettersson, K., & Sakki, I. (2021). Analysing multimodal communication and persuasion in populist radical right political blogs. In M. A. Demasi, S. Burke, & C. Tileagă (Eds.), Political communication: Discursive perspectives (pp. 175–203). Cham: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pomerantz, A. (1986). Extreme case formulations: A way of legitimizing claims. Human Studies, 9, 219–229.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Potter, J. (2002). Two kinds of natural. Discourse Studies, 4(4), 539–542.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Potter, J. (2012). Discourse analysis and discursive psychology. In APA handbook of research methods in psychology, vol 2: Research designs: Quantitative, qualitative, neuropsychological, and biological (pp. 119–138). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Potter, J., & Wetherell, M. (1987). Discourse and social psychology. London: SAGE.

    Google Scholar 

  • Potter, J., & Wetherell, M. (1988). Accomplishing attitudes: Fact and evaluation in racist discourse. Text & Talk, 8(1–2), 51–68.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schegloff, E. A. (2000). Overlapping talk and the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language in Society, 29, 1–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sneijder, P., Stinesen, B., Harmelink, M., & Klarenbeek, A. (2021). The discourse of social movements: Online mobilising practices for collective action. In M. A. Demasi, S. Burke, & C. Tileagă (Eds.), Political communication: Discursive perspectives (pp. 149–173). Cham: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stokoe, E., & Edwards, D. (2007). ‘Black this, black that’: Racial insults and reported speech in neighbour complaints and police interrogations. Discourse & Society, 18(3), 337–372.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stokoe, E., & Edwards, D. (2008). ‘Did you have permission to smash your neighbour’s door?’ Silly questions and their answers in police-suspect interrogations. Discourse Studies, 10(1), 89–111.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tileagă, C. (2010a). Cautious morality: Public accountability, moral order and accounting for a conflict of interest. Discourse Studies, 12(2), 223–239.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tileagă, C. (2010b). Political accountability, public constitution of recent past and the collective memory of socio-political events: A discursive analysis. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 20(5), 363–376.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tileagă, C. (2016). The nature of prejudice: Society, discrimination and moral exclusion. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wetherell, M., & Edley, N. (2009). Masculinity Manoeuvres: Critical discourse psychology and the analysis of identity strategies. In N. Coupland & A. Jaworski (Eds.), The new sociolinguistics reader (pp. 201–214). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Wiggins, S. (2014). Adult and child use of love, like don’t like and hate during family mealtimes. Subjective category assessments as food preference talk. Appetite, 80(1), 7–15.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wiggins, S. (2017). Discursive psychology: Theory, method and applications. Los Angeles: SAGE.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Wiggins, S., & Osvaldsson Cromdal, K. (2021). Discursive psychology and embodiment: Beyond subject-object binaries. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wittgenstein, L. (2010). Philosophical investigations (4th ed.). New York: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, UK

    Mirko Demasi

Authors
  1. Mirko Demasi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mirko Demasi .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland

    Vlad Petre Glăveanu

Section Editor information

  1. London School of Economics and Political Science, London, United Kingdom

    Cathy Nicholson

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

Demasi, M. (2022). Discourse. In: Glăveanu, V.P. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of the Possible. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90913-0_195

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation