Readings WEDNESDAY July 24

ASSIGNMENT: The reflections should 1) demonstrate that you have critically read the assigned readings; 2) raise questions that you would like us to discuss in class; 3) provide any update on your final paper focus.

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Potter & Wetherell (1987), Discourse and Social Psychology, pp.1-93

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     This book is so much better than Edwards and Potter (July 15 and July 17)!!!!! The reading was faster and easier to follow... maybe Wetherell's influence?... and the authors chunked the material in a way that I comprehended more fluidly. The authors made an argument against using social psychology (SP), but it wasn't as abrasive, annoying, or repetitive (3 part list) as Edwards and Potter's argument (which frustrated me the most as I read.)

     The first chapter is foundational- describing where DA came from- Chomsky (really the argument against his simplified, out of context work), ethnomethodology (finally- a definition), and semiology (again- the definition!). Some of the articles we have read have mentioned both ethnomethodology and semiology as part of their theoretical frameworks- now I understand why. Ethnomethodology is the study of the methods people use. "people... are constantly attempting to understand what is going on in any situation and using these understandings to produce appropriate behavior of their own) (Potter & Wetherell, 1987, p. 18.) The big point about semiology is that what words mean (the signified) don't have much to do with the sound we use to refer to words (the signifier). For example, my fur-babies- Jackson and Oscar- are dogs. I use the sounds duh-aw-gh-ss when I talk about them, but those sounds have nothing to do with them being fur-babies. 

Oscar is the one with the awesome style!

     Chapter 2 looks deeper into DA, comparing some traditional SP strands to how DA approaches them. My favorite part of this was the variability piece. The authors wrote, when comparing SP and DA, "This kind of variation differs from the variation discourse analysts note as we are suggesting that what people say or their attitude will not be static either but just as variable as their behavior" (Potter & Wetherell, 1987, p. 53). Variation in accounts is something that most (extreme case) trained artists (member group) are familiar with. When you create a piece of art work, you have a specific idea behind the work- usually multilayered meanings and symbols. When you show your work, you release all meaning to the viewers. The same image can mean something new to everyone, it can also mean several things at once to the same viewer, and it can mean something different to the viewer after the passage of time. (3 part list, and I am recounting accounts of a personal experience and accounts of others to illustrate my point.)

     Chapters 3 and 4 both compared DA and SP. Specifically, chapter 3 looked at rules- "the meaning of rule is expressed in a way appropriate to the speaker's context" (Potter & Wetherell, 1987, p.72). Chapter 4 examined the sequencing of talk- "Conversational analysis emphasizes the vital nature of understanding each conversational turn in terms of the sequence in which it is embedded" (Potter & Wetherell, 1987, p.94).

     I had a lot of fun noticing the discursive resources I used today as I crafted my argument.