Qualitative Psychology

© 2020 American Psychological Association 2020, Vol. 7, No. 3, 326 –330

ISSN: 2326-3601 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/qup0000168

EDITORIAL

Discourse Analysis: Combining Rigor With Application

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and Intervention

Neill Korobov
University of West Georgia
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As a distinctively qualitative methodology for Psychology, discourse anal-

ysis (DA) emerged out of the “turn to language”’ and the emergence of social
constructionism in the social sciences in late 1970s and 1980s (see Potter,
2012). Over the last several decades, DA has proliferated, becoming an
umbrella methodology encompassing a wide range of language-focused
methods and research arenas across diverse disciplines. As a result, DA has
become a catch term for a range of discursive methods rather than one distinct
method. Discourse analytic work now encompasses critical DA, conversation
analysis, Foucauldian DA, sociolinguistics, frame analysis, narrative analy-
sis, speech act analysis, and so on. This has led many scholars to embrace the
term “discourse studies” to signify their broad participation in some discourse
analytic way of working with talk or text (see van Dijk, 2006).
A discursive approach is a social constructionist approach to talk and social
interaction that applies ideas from discursive psychology, conversational
analysis, critical discourse studies, and ethnomethodology to the analysis of
talk and texts (see Edwards & Potter, 1992; Potter, 1996; Potter & Wetherell,
1987). DA examines language in use, rather than the ostensibly psychological
phenomena (attitudes, belief, memories, and emotions) that are purportedly
(and traditionally) presumed to lie beneath and behind such talk. In DA,
discourse is the site of interest, rather than being posited as an epiphenom-
enon of something intrapsychic that drives or creates the discourse. Discourse
is taken be constitutive (and not a reflection or passive conduit) of social and
personal realities and is analyzed without explanatory recourse to an ide-
ational or social realm. This dramatically sets DA apart from other language-
based methods in the social sciences. DA tends to part company with
traditional psychological research that treats language as a referential medium
into “minds” (interiority) or “worlds” (sociality; see Edwards, 2007;
Korobov, 2010, 2017). A discourse analytic approach treats language as a
form of social action that tends to some bit of local social business that is
relevant in the here and now for speakers, but which also builds and comes
to constitute sociality or culture.
In DA, language is studied in terms of construction and function. Language
is examined as onto-formative and constructing, rather than as mirroring

Editor’s Note. This is an introduction to the special section “Discourse Analysis” Please see the
Table of Contents here: http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/qua/7/3/.—RJ

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Neill Korobov, Department of

Psychology, University of West Georgia, 1601 Maple Street, Carrollton, GA 30118. E-mail:
nkorobov@westga.edu

326
 EDITORIAL 327

personal or social realities. Functionally, DA approaches language as social

action; people use language to engage in various types of social business,
achieving certain interpersonal goals in various interactional settings (e.g.,
blaming, flirting, arguing, refuting, apologizing, etc.). DA, therefore, seeks to
understand how a variety of social and cultural practices are built and the
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wide variability that these various practices take. This way of approaching
language lends itself to a rhetorical approach to language that examines the
ways that talk is offensively and defensively built to both take a position as
well as inoculate against what might be hearable as the problematic aspects
of other social or cultural discursive positions (Billig, 1987). This means
paying close attention to the way talk is argumentatively organized, often
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sequentially, and often in the form of contradictory and inconsistent versions

of people, motives, states of mind, or events.
Given its emphasis on construction and function, DA neither asks questions
about or makes claims about the substantive reality of people’s lives or
experiences but examines the ways in which reality and experience are
constructed through social and interpersonal practices. These practices are
made visible in a variety of texts, that is, anything written or spoken that has
meaning (Parker, 2002). DA has been used to analyze both naturally occur-
ring and research generated texts, and as has been applied not only to a wide
variety of casual (naturally occurring) conversational practices, but also to
institutional conversational contexts such as psychotherapy, medical consul-
tation, educational settings, and emergency call centers, and so on. It is with
this analytic focus that DA has been able to interrogate the diachronic
relationship between discourses and institutions; discourses are produced
through institutional practices which in turn legitimize and maintain those
very practices (see Parker, 1992). Critical discourse analytic research has
been particularly instrumental in showing how discourses constitute power,
because they inevitably normalize certain extant versions of reality and
subjectivity while marginalizing others. A discourse analytic approach is,
therefore, poised to interrogate exactly how these practices of normalization
and marginalization are brought off, maintained, and subverted at the quo-
tidian level of social interaction.
Approaching the topic of DA for Qualitative Psychology is no easy task.
The landscape of discourse studies is, to date, an ever expanding terrain
littered with conversations surrounding not only the various discursive camps
(their differences and similarities), but also complex conversations about the
various epistemological debates surrounding the adjudication of discursive
analytic claims, as well as ontological considerations surrounding the nature
of language, power, and so on (Edwards, 2007; Potter & Edwards, 2003).
There is also a glut of existing work on various methodological issues
concerning what should constitute the proper unit of DA, procedures, natural
versus researcher-elicited data, ethical issues, the practice of reflexivity,
gaining access and consent to participants, as well as how to best collect,
transcribe, read, code, analyze, validate, and write up discursive data and
findings (see Korobov, 2017). Finding a novel and timely entry point is,
therefore, quite challenging.
Additionally, Qualitative Psychology has already featured a special section
on discursive research (see Lester, 2014). This special section focused
specifically on Discursive Psychology, which is a subgenre of DA. It featured
conversation analytic articles that detailed the kinds of psychological matters
that appear in applied contexts, such as therapy. For this special section, DA
is approached more broadly by featuring various forms (not just conversation
 328 KOROBOV

analytic) of DA, with a special emphasis on articles that exemplify an

up-close view of the nuts and bolts of how DA is analytically accomplished—
that is, how analysis is done and how claims are made and justified through
recourse to the data. The aim is to clearly empirically illustrate, with rigorous
transparency, how DA is carried out. The goal is for readers to see how
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analysts work with their data and derive discursively grounded descriptions
from it. Too often in discursive work the actual analyses are conducted
back-stage, or else readers only see snippets of data or excessive prose
summary of data without much actual analysis. The articles in this special
section are intentionally transparent and in-depth in showcasing how to
discursively work with data. The hope is to create a bit of a roadmap for
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burgeoning DA scholars wanting a closer view of the analytic process.

However, like Lester’s (2014) section, and like Antaki’s (2011) edited
volume on applied conversation analysis, this special section features articles
that focus on applied or interventional research. The hope is to offer articles
that ignite curiosity among young qualitative researchers specifically inter-
ested in discourse analytic work. The choice for this derives from my own
personal insights having taught qualitative methodology (DA in particular)
over the past 15 years. In my own teaching I have discovered that some ways
of approaching DA work far better than others for whetting appetites. Having
students read articles showing how scholars variously engage with different
styles of DA rarely caught their attention from the outset, nor did rehashing
the historical debates surrounding epistemology. It felt too polemical and too
territorial. Trying to organize discursive work around psychologically rele-
vant themes such as identity or gender felt clever, but often was too concep-
tual and would too easily sidetrack our discussion to the topic (i.e., gender)
rather than the discursive method.
However, what did light a fire was exposing students straightaway to the
practical utility of DA. If we could address the “so what?” question from the
outset and connect the use of DA to real world problems and interventions,
we could ignite a genuine curiosity that then hooked us more deeply into the
more complex terrain concerning DA’s epistemological assumptions, meth-
odological constraints, and territorial distinctions. And so, I bring this ped-
agogical conviction to this special section by offering applied or interven-
tional articles. For this special section, not only will the articles dig deep into
the analytic thicket of claims-making and data analysis, but they will also
attempt to address the big questions that many young scholars and students
bring to DA, which is “so what do we do with this in the real world?”—that
is, what are some of the practical real-world applications for being well
trained as a discourse analyst? The aim is to offer a small range of articles
that delve into the architecture of discourse and social interaction within
applied or interventional contexts.
This special section features four articles that attempt to bridge these aims.
Elizabeth Stokoe’s article describes what she calls the Conversation Analytic
Role Play Method (CARM), which draws on real interactions across a variety
of fields (e.g., health care, sales, and legal), to explore what constitutes
effective and noneffective interpersonal practices. Issues such as identity,
prejudice, and hate speech are implicated and explored with the goal to
provide a rigorous and empirically grounded communication training guide.
Eliza Maciejewska’s article applies a rigorous step-by-step discursive anal-
ysis to a nondirective therapeutic approach to Austism Spectrum Disorder
(ASD), specifically examining the exchanges between therapists and their
clients with ASD as well as between the autistic clients themselves. The goal
 EDITORIAL 329

is to demonstrate how DA can highlight autistic resources, supporting the

concept of neurodiversity and providing implications for practitioners. Co-
lette Daiute and Tinde Kovacs-Cerovic’s article offers a critical discursive
analysis of the violent displacement of youth from the Middle East through
the Western Balkans and into Serbia during the crisis of 2015–2018. The
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article presents a discursive intervention drawing on an array of diverse

genres (narratives, letters, policy documents, and news stories) of the local
and migrant youth in a public education system supporting their integration.
The goal is to offer a “values analysis” of the discursive expressions of
Serbian and Afghan youth as a route to both understanding lived subjectivi-
ties and influencing geo-political policy. Finally, Nikki Kiyimba’s article is a
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discursive psychological examination of the use of extreme case formulations

(ECFs) to create nonliteral (metaphorical) forms of extremity within family
therapy interactions. The creation of nonliteral descriptions vis-à-vis ECFs is
explored as a method for creating positions that resist accountability. Her
work interrogates the institutional context of the family therapy clinic.
Taken together, the articles in this special section exemplify a rigorously
systematic window into applied and interventional discourse analytic work
and, thus, sound a clarion call to the qualitative field to increasingly find ways
to balance careful detail with real-world relevance. DA has increasingly
become a diversified yet disciplined method that is offers a demonstrably
meticulous method for interrogating multiple levels of interaction, from the
microinterpersonal to the cultural or historical. As is clear from the articles,
DA is equipped to tackle real world applied institutional issues, some of
which involve novel and exciting interventional solutions that are grounded
in the lived practical exigencies of the participants for whom they matter. It
is exactly at this level of hybridization, collapsing ecologically grounded
rigor with creative application, where DA stands as a vanguard in the
burgeoning qualitative landscape.

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Received September 8, 2019

Accepted March 11, 2020 䡲
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