Discourse analysis

Martha Augoustinos

pp. 205-223

in: Brendan Gough (ed), The Palgrave handbook of critical social psychology, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017

Abstract

Discourse Analysis (DA) refers to the systematic study of both written text and talk and its role in constructing social reality. DA is much more than a qualitative methodology: it is theoretically and epistemologically informed by social constructionism and has been central to challenging the dominance of cognitive and perceptual theoretical models in psychology. Currently there are a diverse range of approaches to analysing discourse that differ markedly from each other so DA should not be treated as a unified approach. This chapter will consider this tradition of research, its intellectual influences, historical trajectory in psychology and the radical critique it has directed towards many of its taken-for-granted concepts. It will also outline some core principles in DA and demonstrate how they are examined in the analysis of discourse.