What is the discursive approach
John Thompson
Updated on May 24, 2026
A discursive approach enables you to explore the construction of meanings in human interaction. The starting point in your research is that the researched phenomenon may have different meanings for people in diverse situations. The aim of your research is, therefore, to explain and analyze these various meanings.
What is a discursive approach social psychology?
Discursive psychology (DP) is a form of discourse analysis that focuses on psychological themes in talk, text, and images. … In discursive psychology, the focus is not on psychological matters somehow leaking out into interaction; rather, interaction is the primary site where psychological issues are live.
What is discursive system?
Discursive fields, such as the law or the family, contain a number of competing and contradictory discourses with varying degrees of power to give meaning to and organize social institutions and processes.
What does discursive mean in philosophy?
1. discursive – proceeding to a conclusion by reason or argument rather than intuition. dianoetic. philosophy – the rational investigation of questions about existence and knowledge and ethics. logical – capable of or reflecting the capability for correct and valid reasoning; “a logical mind”Is discursive psychology a theory?
Discursive Psychology (Edwards and Potter 1992) is a psychological theory that is critical of the way in which cognition is understood in psychology.
Why is discursive psychology important?
McMullen shows us, discursive psychology provides a clear, coherent approach for analyzing talk and text and for situating discourse within social contexts. All of us are discourse analysts in our everyday lives. We listen to others speak, we read texts, and we make meaning of, and interpret, what is said or written.
What does discursive psychology do?
Discursive psychology (DP) is the study of psychological issues from a participant’s perspective. It investigates how people practically manage psychological themes and concepts such as emotion, intent, or agency within talk and text, and to what ends.
What is discursive musing?
Wandering from one topic to another; skimming over many apparently unconnected subjects; rambling; desultory; digressive. adjective. 4. 1.What does Foucault mean by discursive practices?
Discursive practices, as developed by Foucault, refers to the practices (or operations) of discourses, meaning knowledge formations, not to linguistic practices or language use. The focus is on how knowledge is produced through plural and contingent practices across different sites.
What does discursive formation mean?Discursive formations, according to Foucault, are groups of statements which may have any order, correlation, position, or function as determined by this disunity. A discursive formation is thus a system of dispersion.
Article first time published onWhat is Foucault theory?
Foucault’s theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and how they are used as a form of social control through societal institutions. … These first three histories exemplified a historiographical technique Foucault was developing called “archaeology.”
How does Foucault define knowledge?
Foucault uses the term ‘power/knowledge’ to signify that power is constituted through accepted forms of knowledge, scientific understanding and ‘truth’: … In fact power produces; it produces reality; it produces domains of objects and rituals of truth.
What did Foucault believe?
Foucault was interested in power and social change. In particular, he studied how these played out as France shifted from a monarchy to democracy via the French revolution. He believed that we have tended to oversimplify this transition by viewing it as an ongoing and inevitable attainment of “freedom” and “reason”.
Is Grounded Theory a methodology?
Grounded theory is a well-known methodology employed in many research studies. Qualitative and quantitative data generation techniques can be used in a grounded theory study. Grounded theory sets out to discover or construct theory from data, systematically obtained and analysed using comparative analysis.
What is the difference between discourse analysis and thematic analysis?
Thematic analysis is a poorly demarcated, rarely acknowledged, yet widely used qualitative analytic method in psychology and other fields. … Discourse analysis is interested in naturally occurring text and talk.
What is psychological discourse analysis?
Discourse analysis is the study of how talk and texts are used to perform actions. Discursive psychology is the application of ideas from discourse analysis to issues in psychology.
What are discursive actions?
A discursive action model is proposed for investigating everyday causal attribution. Although a cognitive psychology of discursive attribution is considered feasible, this must follow a reconceptualization of language as social action. (
Why does discursive psychology reject Cognitivism?
According to discursive psychologists, not only do cognitivists have an inadequate view of language but their perspective distracts them from examining how people actually use language within social life.
What is discourse analysis in qualitative research?
Discourse analysis is a blanket term for a range of qualitative research approaches used in analyzing the use of language in social contexts. … For example, qualitative researchers may examine how people in a given setting use a particular word to understand their upbringing or the influences other people have on them.
What is a script formulation?
Abstract. A qualitative analysis of conversational extracts is presented, in which participants formulate the nature of actions and events as “scripted” (typical or routine) or exceptional. Such formulations are shown to be interactionally occasioned and rhetorically oriented constructions of events.
What is the purpose of critical discourse analysis?
Critical discourse analysis is a methodology that enables a vigorous assessment of what is meant when language is used to describe and explain. There is a proliferation of terms within critical discourse analysis which is reflective of the various influences in the development of the methodology.
What does Foucault mean by disciplinary power?
According to Foucault disciplinary power characterises the way in which the relations of inequality and oppression in modern western societies are (re)produced through the psychological complex.
What is discourse according to scholars?
Definition of Discourse Discourse is any written or spoken communication. … Several scholars in many different disciplines have theorized about the different types and functions of discourse.
What are discursive patterns?
The term is also used to refer to the particular discourse governed by this principle, in which different examples share the same patterns of concerns, perspectives, concepts, or themes. For instance, the discourses of medicine or economics. Said analysed orientalism as a discursive formation.
What are discursive features?
NESA adds that discursive essays can have some of the following features: Explores an issue or an idea and may suggest a position or point of view. Approaches a topic from different angles and explores themes and issues in a style that balances personal observations with different perspectives.
What is an example of discursive formation?
When different discursive events refer to the same object they belong to the same discursive formation. For example an divorce-case in court. In this discourse there are two sides. With both different arguments, actions, opinions and goals.
What is a discourse theory?
In general, discourse theory is concerned with human expressions, often in the form of language. It highlights how such expressions are linked to human knowledge. … In other words, discourse theory is concerned with questions of power, and often with questions of institutional hierarchies.
What does discourse mean in English language?
Full Definition of discourse (Entry 1 of 2) 1 : verbal interchange of ideas especially : conversation. 2a : formal and orderly and usually extended expression of thought on a subject. b : connected speech or writing. c : a linguistic unit (such as a conversation or a story) larger than a sentence.
Does Foucault believe in truth?
Foucault does have a theory of truth that includes explicit description of objective truth. Furthermore, he takes his own work to exemplify objectivity in its truth. Finally, he offers reasons to believe that initially attractive rejections of the idea of objective truth are, when indulged, unproductive in the utmost.
What did Foucault say?
Foucault emphasizes that power is not discipline, rather discipline is simply one way in which power can be exercised. He also uses the term ‘disciplinary society’, discussing its history and the origins and disciplinary institutions such as prisons, hospitals, asylums, schools and army barracks.
What is Foucault known for?
Foucault was known for tracing the development of Western civilization, particularly in its attitudes towards sexuality, madness, illness, and knowledge. His late works insisted that forms of discourse and institutional practices are implicated in the exercise of power.