Discourses and Discourse Analysis

In: The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Data Analysis

By: Carla Willig

Edited by: Uwe Flick
Pub. Date: 2013
Access Date: October 30, 2020
Publishing Company: SAGE Publications Ltd
City: London
Print ISBN: 9781446208984
Online ISBN: 9781446282243
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781446282243
Print pages: 341-353
© 2014 SAGE Publications Ltd All Rights Reserved.
This PDF has been generated from SAGE Research Methods. Please note that the pagination of the
online version will vary from the pagination of the print book.
SAGE SAGE Research Methods
2014 SAGE Publications, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Discourses and Discourse Analysis

CarlaWillig

Discourse analysis is concerned with the ways in which language constructs and mediates social and
psychological realities. Discourse analysts foreground the constructive and performative properties of
language, paying particular attention to the effects of our choice of words to express or describe something.
Discourse analysis involves the careful examination of talk and texts in order to trace the ways in which
discourses bring into being the objects and subjects of which they speak. Discourse analysis is based on
the premise that the words we choose to speak about something, and the way in which they are spoken
or written, shape the sense that can be made of the world and our experience of it. Discourse analysts are
acutely conscious of the power of discourse, and they consider our social and experiential worlds to be the
product of our discursive construction of them.

A discourse analytic approach challenges the idea that the accounts people provide of their thoughts,
feelings and experiences are comparable to a mirror image of what is going on inside of them, in their
hearts and minds. Such an approach is the intellectual product of what is often referred to as ‘the turn to
language’, itself a consequence of a philosophical reappraisal of the role of language in human interaction
and experience. This reappraisal involved considering the social effects of language, its action orientation and
its constitutive power. Ludwig Wittgenstein (1953) and John Austin (1962) are perhaps the most well-known
early proponents of this perspective on language. Wittgenstein's (1953) argument that the meaning of words
is constituted by their function in particular ‘language games’ and Austin's (1962) assertion that speech is a
form of action and that we ‘do things with words’ have been enormously influential within this context.

A discourse analytic approach to qualitative research adopts what Forrester (1996: 32) describes as the
‘language-dominant view of language’. According to this view, language and thought are inextricably bound
up with one another because language produces ‘versions and visions of reality as codes and conventions
embedded within particular cultural contexts’ (Forrester, 1996: 33). From this point of view, language is
organized into discourses which are culturally specific and whose availability depends upon social, historical
and cultural contexts. Discourses may be defined as ‘sets of statements that construct objects and an array of
subject positions’ (Parker, 1994: 245). Discourses make available particular interpretative repertoires, which
provide us with ‘a lexicon or register of terms and metaphors’, which can be ‘drawn upon to characterise
and evaluate actions and events’ in particular ways (Potter and Wetherell, 1987: 138). Discourse analysis is
concerned with understanding these processes of discursive construction and their social consequences.

Varieties of Discursive Analysis

A concern with the role of discourse can be identified across a wide range of disciplines within the social
and human sciences (e.g. sociology, philosophy, cultural studies, linguistics, social psychology), and as a

Discourses and Discourse Analysis

Page 2 of 17
SAGE SAGE Research Methods
2014 SAGE Publications, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

result a variety of approaches to the analysis of discourse have emerged. Although all of them emphasize the
importance of processes of discursive construction in the organization and management of social life, they
differ in the emphasis they place on different aspects and dimensions of these processes. For example, some
discourse analysts are particularly concerned with the ways in which institutional discourses are implicated in
the maintenance of power relations within a society, for example by obscuring or mystifying power inequalities
(e.g. Wodak, 1996; Fairclough, 1995), thus taking a ‘critical’ approach to the analysis of discourse. Others
are more interested in the micro-level processes associated with the use of discourse in relatively mundane,
everyday conversations (e.g. Schegloff, 1968; Drew and Heritage, 1992) and their role in creating and
maintaining the social worlds that speakers inhabit; this approach is referred to as ‘conversation analysis’ (see
Toerien, Chapter 22, this volume). Another approach, perhaps best described as ‘socio-linguistic’, involves
the close examination of the ‘language behaviour’ of different social groups in order to understand the
differences between them and their implications for social (and power) relations (e.g. Labov, 1966; Tannen,
1990). Yet another way of studying the role of discourse involves the examination of cultural representations
(see Winter, Chapter 17, this volume), for example in the media (see Hodgetts and Chamberlain, Chapter
26, this volume), and the ways in which they make available and thus perpetuate shared meanings. Here,
the focus is upon ‘the production and circulation of meaning through language’ (Hall, 1997:1) and its role in
the production of ‘culture’. There is also narrative analysis (see Esin et al., Chapter 14, this volume) which is
concerned with the structure, content and function of the stories people tell about their experiences, in terms
of both their social impact and their psychological effects (e.g. Riessman, 1993; Mishler, 1995). There are
many ways in which researchers have addressed questions about the role of discourse in social life, and in
this chapter we are going to examine in more detail only one of these. However, Wodak (1996: ch. 1) provides
a helpful historical overview of a range of perspectives on the study of discourse.

Approach Adopted in This Chapter

The approach to discourse analysis adopted in this chapter is informed by a concern with the availability of
discourses and interpretative repertoires to individuals when they speak about their experiences. As such,
the approach adopted here can be located within the social psychological tradition of discourse analysis as it
was developed within the UK over the last 25 years or so (e.g. Potter and Wetherell, 1987; Parker, 1992). The
type of discourse analysis described in the remainder of this chapter seeks to generate insights about how
speakers draw on available discursive resources in order to construct particular versions of their experiences.
It is also interested in the action orientation of the deployment of discursive resources within a particular
context; for example, we may want to understand what may be achieved, socially and/or interpersonally,
by describing something in a particular way. Thus, the analytic method described here is influenced by
a Foucauldian approach to discourse analysis as well as by ideas drawn from conversation analysis and
ethnomethodology as they are incorporated into their analytic approach by discursive psychologists (see
Willig, 2008a: chs 6 and 7, for accounts of Foucauldian discourse analysis and discursive psychology,
respectively; see also Wetherell, 1998, for an account of how to integrate the two).

Discourses and Discourse Analysis

Page 3 of 17
SAGE SAGE Research Methods
2014 SAGE Publications, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Analytic Approach

Approaching data from a discursive perspective means focusing on language. The purpose of a discursive
analysis is to gain a better understanding of how the use of language (that is to say, the choice of words,
grammatical constructions and various rhetorical strategies) is implicated in the construction of particular
versions of events. Discourse analytic research is very much concerned with the effects of discourse, with
what discourse can do and, as a result, discursive research is primarily interested in discourse itself rather
than in the individuals who use it and whose speech or writing constitutes the data to be analysed. In other
words, the research questions which drive discourse analytic research are about the (social, institutional,
psychological) effects of discourse, and not about the thoughts and feelings within the individual speakers
which may give rise to the words they utter. A discursive analysis always starts with discourse. Discourse
analysts can go on to ask questions about how discourses may construct subjectivities, and this is a particular
concern of Foucauldian versions of discourse analysis; however, here subjectivity is conceptualized as the
product of internalized discursive constructions and positionings, never as an entity that pre-exits the use of
discourse.

Any text constitutes suitable data for discourse analysis. Indeed, Parker advises that ‘we consider all tissues
of meaning as texts’, including ‘speech, writing, non-verbal behaviour, Braille, Morse code, semaphore, runes,
advertisements, fashion systems, stained glass, architecture, tarot cards and bus tickets’ (1992: 7). In Critical
Textwork Parker presents discursive analyses of a wide range of ‘symbolic systems that are not usually
thought of as textual’ (1999: 1) including material from visual media and physical settings such as cities and
gardens. Hall (1997) reminds us that the signs and symbols, which constitute language as a representational
system (see Winter, Chapter 17, this volume), include more than words; they can take the form of sounds (see
Maeder, Chapter 29, this volume), images (see Banks, Chapter 27, this volume), musical notes or objects.
This means that discourse analysis can be conducted on ‘texts’ in the widest sense. Some examples of such
research can be found in Hall (1997) and Reavey (2011). Non-linguistic texts are particularly suitable for
analyses, which are concerned with the production of cultures and social identities (e.g. Edwards, 2011; Gill,
2011). Versions of discourse analysis which are particularly concerned with how speakers deploy discursive
resources within specific conversational contexts, however, require data which capture the to and fro of
discursive engagement between speakers. Potter and Hepburn (2005) argue that ideally data for discursive
analysis should consist of naturally occurring conversations, rather than written narrative accounts or semi-
structured interviews (see Roulston, Chapter 20, this volume). Transcription conventions (see Kowal and
O'Connell, Chapter 5, this volume) for preparing data for discourse analysis also vary depending on the
approach taken. Foucauldian versions of discourse analysis, for example, require less detailed transcription
of the various non-linguistic features of speech than does discursive research inspired by conversation
analysis. The analysis presented in the second part of this chapter draws on both Foucauldian and discursive
psychology strategies for analysis using an extract from a semi-structured interview. The nature and quality
of the data are suitable for the analytic approach adopted as they provide evidence of a range of discursive
resources deployed as well as their strategic deployment within the context of the research interview.
Discourses and Discourse Analysis
Page 4 of 17
SAGE SAGE Research Methods
2014 SAGE Publications, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Once a suitable text for analysis has been obtained, discourse analysis proceeds by working through the text
line by line. Although there are a number of step-by-step guides to discourse analysis (e.g. Parker, 1992;
Kendall and Wickham, 1999; Langdridge, 2004; Willig, 2008a), it is important to bear in mind that discourse
analysis is not so much a recipe as a perspective from which to approach a text. It is a perspective on
language which allows the researcher to produce a particular kind of reading of a text, a reading which
foregrounds the constructive and performative properties of language. As Potter and Wetherell put it:

There is no analytic method … there is a broad theoretical framework which focuses attention on the
constructive and functional dimensions of discourse, coupled with the reader's skills in identifying
significant patterns of consistency and variation. (1987: 169)

One way of generating a discursive reading is to approach the data with a set of questions in mind, and to
interrogate each line of text as well as the text as a whole with the help of these questions. Helpful questions
with which to approach a text include the following (see also Holt, 2011):

• What sorts of assumptions (about the world, about people) appear to underpin what is being said
and how it is being said?
• Could what is being said have been said differently without fundamentally changing the meaning of
what is being said? If so, how?
• What kind of discursive resources are being used to construct meaning here?
• What may be the potential consequences of the discourses that are used for those who are
positioned by them, in terms of both their subjective experience and their ability to act in the world?
• How do speakers use the discursive resources that are available to them?
• What may be gained and what may be lost as a result of such deployments?

It is important to bear in mind that when analysing interview transcripts, a discursive analysis requires that
as much attention is paid to the interviewer's contribution to the conversation as to the interviewee's. This
is because the interviewer's questions and comments constitute the discursive context within which the
interviewee's contributions are made and to which they will inevitably orient themselves.

Epistemological Orientation

The epistemological position associated with discourse analytic research is social constructionism (see Esin
et al., Chapter 14, this volume). Here, the researcher adopts a relativist position whereby the data are of
interest not because they inform the researcher about ‘how things really are’ (e.g. what people are really
thinking or feeling, or what happened in a particular social context), but rather because they tell the researcher
something about how people construct meaning around events using the discursive resources that are
available to them. The researcher is not concerned with the truth value of what participants are telling him or
her; rather, the aim of the research is to generate an understanding of what people are doing when they talk
about something in a particular way. In other words, the aim of the research is to gain a better understanding

Discourses and Discourse Analysis

Page 5 of 17
SAGE SAGE Research Methods
2014 SAGE Publications, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

of the social dimension of participants' meaning-making activities.

Here, the type of knowledge sought is not knowledge about the world itself or knowledge about how things
are experienced by research participants, but rather knowledge about the process by which such ‘knowledge’
is constructed in the first place. Such an approach to research is based upon the assumption that all
human experience is mediated by language and that all social and psychological phenomena are discursively
constructed in one way or another. The discourse analytic researcher is interested in how socially available
ways of talking about the phenomenon of interest are deployed and what the consequences of this may be
(see Willig, 2012a, for a discussion of the epistemological bases of different qualitative approaches; also see
Willig, Chapter 10, this volume).

Limitations of Discourse Analysis

Discourse analytic research focuses on the role of language in the construction of social and psychological
phenomena. It is concerned with the effects of discourse rather than with human experience as such, and
it constitutes a profoundly non-cognitive form of social psychology. Discourse analytic research has been
criticized for privileging discourse over ‘the person’ and for failing to theorize subjectivity (e.g. Langdridge,
2004; Burr, 2002; Butt and Langdridge, 2003; Nightingale and Cromby, 1999) including our sense of self,
intentionality, self-awareness and autobiographical memory. While discourse analysts have argued that
speculation about mental entities is not relevant to discourse analytic research (e.g. Potter and Wetherell,
1987), it could be argued that the concern of discourse analysis with action orientation does beg the question
of why it may be that particular individuals or groups of people pursue particular discursive objectives. In
other words, while discourse analysis is very good at generating insights into how speakers deploy discursive
resources and with what effects, it is not very good at telling us what motivates them to do so. It has been
argued that ‘discursive psychology brackets, and yet relies upon, a notion of motivation or desire, which
it is incapable of theorising’ (Willig, 2008a: 107). Another criticism of discourse analytic research concerns
its claim that the analysis draws on nothing outside of the text itself. However, it could be argued that it is
impossible to make sense of what is going on in a text without importing ideas and concepts from outside
of it. For example, the very assumptions about the role and function of language, which underpin discourse
analytic research, are themselves brought to the text from outside of it (see Willig, 2012b, for a more detailed
discussion of these issues; also see Willig, Chapter 10, this volume).

From an ethical standpoint (see Mertens, Chapter 35, this volume), one could question the acceptability of
analysing research participants' accounts through a discursive lens when their accounts were provided in
good faith with the participants, assuming that the interviewer was genuinely interested in the nature of their
experiences rather than in how they deployed discursive resources. It could be argued that for ethical reasons
certain types of accounts, such as those which are concerned with suffering and distress and which were
provided by participants who believed that the interviewer was genuinely interested in the experiential aspects
of their account (rather than the discursive ones), should not be subjected to discursive analysis (see also

Discourses and Discourse Analysis

Page 6 of 17
SAGE SAGE Research Methods
2014 SAGE Publications, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Willig, 2004).

The Foucauldian approach to discourse analysis does attempt to address some of these limitations. Here,
research participants are not simply seen as strategic users of discourse but rather as historical subjects
who are themselves constructed through and positioned within discourse. From this point of view, discourse
is directly implicated in the process by which ‘human beings are made subjects’ (Foucault, 1982: 208). The
argument here is that the availability and uptake of subject positions in discourse give rise to different kinds
of selves and to possibilities of subjective experience. However, there are still unanswered questions about
the extent to which subjectivity can be theorized on the basis of discourse practices alone, and what may be
the role of other factors and structures in this process.

Worked Example

The data from which this example is drawn were originally collected as part of a phenomenological study of
the experience of taking part in extreme sport (Willig, 2005; 2008b). Extracts from one of the participants'
transcribed interviews will be used here in order to illustrate what is involved in a discursive analysis (see
Willig, 2012b, for an extended version of this analysis). In the interview extract the participant, whom we shall
call Anna, is asked to describe an occasion on which she took part in a form of extreme sport. In her response
to this question Anna produces a lengthy account of not one but two such occasions. In her account she
describes an initial white-water rafting expedition which did not satisfy her desire for an ‘adrenaline rush’ and
which was followed by a second trip which did deliver the desired ‘rush’. Although the data had not been
collected specifically for the purpose of discursive analysis, it was felt that the nature and quality of the data
were suitable for the discourse analytic approach described in this chapter. The data are rich in evidence
of a range of discursive constructions of the participant's experience, and the research interview constituted
enough of a conversation between the interviewer and the participant to elicit clear evidence of a variety of
action orientations.

In order to protect the participant's identity, all identifying details have been either changed or removed from
all quotations used.

Process of Analysis

The process of analysis of the data involved careful reading and rereading of the transcript. This reading was
done with an awareness that the focus of the analysis was the text itself; this meant that this was not a reading
‘for gist’ but rather a reading which was concerned with the properties of the language used in the account.
The questions listed on p. 344 were used to guide the initial encounter with the text.

The second phase of the analysis involved a line-by-line analysis of the transcript. Here, analytic notes were
written in the margins of the text in order to capture systematically what was talked about (construction), how
it was talked about (discursive strategies) and with what consequences (action orientation). These notes were

Discourses and Discourse Analysis

Page 7 of 17
SAGE SAGE Research Methods
2014 SAGE Publications, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

then reviewed and after a process of cross-referencing and integration of analytic observations, a discursive
reading of the extract was produced. In what follows two analytic observations are presented and discussed
in order to provide some illustration of what is involved in a discursive analysis and what kinds of insights can
be generated on the basis of it. We will be focusing on Anna's use of a discourse of addiction to frame her
engagement with extreme sport and her deployment of dualistic constructions of self in her account.

Discourse of Addiction

In Anna's account of her engagement with extreme sport activities she positions herself as an active seeker of
‘thrill and excitement’, somebody who goes to great lengths in order to generate a sufficiently powerful ‘rush’.
With reference to her decision to repeat the white-water rafting expedition in order to access a more intense
experience, she says, ‘even though it had cost me a fortune, but I was gonna do it again’. In her narrative
we can identify repeated constructions of herself as someone who is strongly drawn to experiences which
provide her with an ‘adrenaline rush’; in fact, she explains that her attraction is so strong that her ability to
resist this ‘urge’ is compromised. Having described the second white-water rafting trip as involving a complete
loss of control over the raft and as being ‘probably the most terrifying thing I've ever done in my life’, Anna
concludes that she ‘had to love’ the experience (‘I just loved it. I had to’). In her construction of herself as
someone who is so powerfully attracted to courting danger that this disables any cautionary impulse within
her, Anna uses a series of extreme case formulations (Pomerantz, 1986):

So I went down with pedals, steering ourselves down and it was probably the most terrifying thing
I've ever done in my whole life (laughs) I actually thought I was going to die but we went down, we
were completely out of control the whole way and one of the guys very nearly drowned (laughs) …

Extreme case formulations (italicized in the quote above) are formulations which take claims or evaluations
to their extremes; in this way, they provide an effective warrant for the speaker's actions and thus legitimize
them. In our case, Anna's claim (that she is irresistibly drawn to extreme sport) is supported by the extreme
nature of the risks and dangers she exposes herself to and which she evokes very powerfully with the help
of the extreme case formulations deployed in the quote. The compulsive dimension of Anna's relationship
with extreme sport is affirmed at the end of the extract when she concludes, ‘I need to do these things. It's
something I just have to do.’

In her construction of herself as irresistibly drawn to extreme sport and her frequent references to the impact
of the extreme sport experience on her physiology (e.g. when she talks about the ‘adrenaline rush’, her
‘frayed nerves’, the ‘buzz’, the ‘huge amounts of energy’ generated, and the observation that ‘your heart's
going a million miles per hour’), Anna invokes a discourse of addiction. ‘Addiction’ as an explanatory construct
attributes the compulsion to engage in a behaviour to its powerfully rewarding physiological effects which
in turn have a positive impact on mood thus leading to the desire to repeat the behaviour. Anna's use of a
discourse of addiction is particularly evident in her description of the pleasurable aftereffects of an episode of
extreme sport:

Discourses and Discourse Analysis

Page 8 of 17
SAGE SAGE Research Methods
2014 SAGE Publications, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

The feeling, the rush that you get is just so, it takes a good day to come down, at least for me it does.
Even longer, actually, ‘cos I'm just thinking of when I first went on a big hike that lasted over a week
and for about a month and a half after the walk, I was just bouncing off the walls. I just had such a
great time. This made everything in my body was just going, I just loved it. My sister thought I was
completely nuts when I got back because I just couldn't sit still. So when I finish things like this it's
just (intake of breath) you know.

The terminology used by Anna in this extract (her references to ‘the rush’, ‘coming off it’ and ‘coming down’)
is identical to that used to describe drug users' experiences. These commonalities confirm that Anna does
indeed position herself within a discourse of drug addiction when she talks about her experiences of extreme
sport.

In addition, Anna's incomplete sentence (‘It's just …’) followed by a sharp intake of breath emphasizes the
embodied quality of her experience, constructing it as something which cannot be adequately captured in
words. Again, here we can see parallels with the way in which drug addiction is constructed: that is, as
something which is seen as irrational and overwhelming and which neither the addict nor those close to the
addict can make sense of; Anna ‘just loves it’ while her sister thought ‘she was completely nuts’.

Positioning herself within a discourse of addiction allows Anna to offer a vivid and captivating account of her
high-risk activities without having to justify her risk-taking in a way that appeals to rational considerations.
Through drawing on a discourse of addiction Anna is able to talk openly about her extreme sport activities
without having to take responsibility for choosing to engage in such dangerous pursuits, as her engagement
with extreme sport is constructed as a compulsion rather than a choice. Within a context which invites
accountability (after all, she is being interviewed about her extreme sport activities) the deployment of a
discourse of addiction serves to disclaim responsibility for taking part in a potentially socially undesirable
activity and to ward off potential criticism.

Dualism

Anna's account of her engagement with extreme sport is shot through with dualistic constructions of the self.
Here, the self is constructed as being composed of distinct and separate parts, which do not necessarily
communicate with one another. For example, a dualistic construction of the self, which constructs the material
body (with its powerful urges and desires) as being in conflict with the moral self (which attempts to overrule
the material body), is part and parcel of a discourse of addiction. Another way of constructing the self
dualistically involves invoking conscious and unconscious parts of the self which do not have direct access
to one another. Such a construction emerges when Anna is asked to reflect on her motives for taking part
in extreme sport. In her reply she takes up the position of an outside observer of herself. She constructs
a dualism between herself as the observer and herself as the object of her observations. In this way, she
disavows an insider perspective and finds herself speculating about her motives in much the same way that
somebody else may speculate. For example, in the following quote Anna disclaims any knowledge of why

Discourses and Discourse Analysis

Page 9 of 17
SAGE SAGE Research Methods
2014 SAGE Publications, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

she does what she does:

Actually, it's funny when you think about it ‘cos I don't know what makes me do that. When I went
bungee-jumping and I was standing there, I was the first person to go and I didn't see anyone jump
before me and I didn't know, I hadn't even seen it on TV, I'd never seen anyone bungee-jump before.
And standing on the edge of this platform and the guy just said, I'm gonna count down from 10 and
then you just jump, alright? And then he counted down and I just jumped and I can't tell you what
made me jump. I don't know what went through my head. It was sort of not an option. I was there, I
made myself get to the edge of the platform and I just was gone …

Here, a dualistic construction of the self allows Anna to disclaim knowledge of her motives. Something other
than her conscious self (‘I don't know what made me do that’; ‘I can't tell you what made me jump’; ‘I don't
know what went through my head’) is responsible for her decision to jump and this means that Anna is unable
to account for her actions. A little later, she goes on to develop a hypothesis about her motives for giving up
sky-diving:

Yeah, but I'm just thinking, it's interesting ‘cos I wonder if the events, the sports that I've done I've
always got that faith in somebody else? I'm just wondering, maybe when I stopped doing things like
my sky-diving, when it's just me. I have to rely on myself. I don't have that much confidence in myself
to keep on going. You know, when you get to a stage, ‘cos when I started sky-diving I was doing
(partnered jumps) … so I was completely relying on somebody else to hook me up to the plane and
everything. But when it got to the stage where I could jump on my own, I just stopped going. I mean
there were a lot of reasons for that but I just wonder …

Again, although she identifies a possible motive (‘I don't have that much confidence in myself to keep on
going’), Anna presents this as a hypothesis which she has arrived at through observation and reflection rather
than as an insight based on direct self-knowledge (‘It's interesting ‘cos I wonder …’; ‘I'm just wondering,
maybe ‘I mean there were a lot of reasons for that but I just wonder …’). Anna constructs her insights as
the product of a dualistic scrutiny of herself as an object of interest, thus creating a gap between herself as
a conscious agent and her motivations for taking part in extreme sport activities. Again, as was the case
in relation to the deployment of a discourse of addiction, Anna's use of dualistic discourse allows her to
distance herself from her engagement with extreme sport and to disclaim responsibility for her actions and
their consequences.

Reflections on the Analysis

A discursive analysis of Anna's interview extract has generated some insights into her use of discursive
resources (such as the discourse of addiction and dualistic constructions of self) and their implication in the
construction of a particular version of her engagement with extreme sport. The question of what Anna was
doing when she constructed her experience of extreme sport in the way she did was also addressed. It was
suggested that by positioning herself within a discourse of addiction and by drawing on dualistic constructions

Discourses and Discourse Analysis

Page 10 of 17
SAGE SAGE Research Methods
2014 SAGE Publications, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

of self, Anna was able to disclaim responsibility for taking part in leisure activities which are considered to be
extremely dangerous and which relatively few people engage in. However, in order to better understand the
action orientation of Anna's deployment of discursive resources, we need to consider the discursive context
within which Anna was positioned when she spoke about her relationship with extreme sport. Taking a closer
look at the interviewer's style of questioning, we can see that the questions put to Anna constructed extreme
sport as an experience which is composed of distinct elements (thoughts, feelings, sensations) which can
be described and understood, and they positioned the interviewee as a self-aware, reflective subject who is
willing and able to scrutinize herself. For example, Anna was invited to ‘describe one occasion when you took
part in a form of extreme sport’ and a little later she was asked, ‘So if we look at it in terms of just before you
did it and then during it and after … can you remember how you felt …?’ On occasion the style of questioning
seems to imply that the purpose of the interview was to subject the interviewee's experiences to something
akin to almost scientific scrutiny, for example when Anna is invited to dissect the feelings she has during a
particular episode of extreme sport (‘So the feelings during it were like a mixture of excitement and fear? Or
how would you describe it?’). This style of questioning places Anna at the centre of events; the questions
construct Anna as an active agent in the narrative as they are concerned with what she did and what she
felt (rather than, say, what happened to her or what other people did). Anna responded to this by providing
an account which served to distance her from full responsibility for her actions. If we accept that the style
of questioning, and indeed the entire interview situation itself, positioned Anna as having to account for her
engagement with extreme sport (an activity which is not universally approved of as it carries serious risks to
the life and health of the practitioner), it should come as no surprise that she deployed discursive devices
and rhetorical strategies that would help her manage her own stake in the conversation. It follows that from
a discursive point of view, our analysis of Anna's account tells us more about the type of situation she found
herself in (i.e. an interview in which she was invited to account for her extreme sport practices) than about
Anna herself or about the experience of extreme sport.

In addition, the analysis tells us something about the discursive resources which are culturally available
to Anna and which can be used to construct ‘extreme sport’. For example, we discovered that the same
discourse (a discourse of addiction) can be used to frame extreme sport and drug use. We also observed that
a dualist discourse was invoked in the construction of pleasure (e.g. when Anna attributes her love of extreme
sport to unconscious forces). Such observations resonate with a construction of the body as the primary site
for pleasure and enjoyment, and the assumption that rational thought interferes with feeling good. This is
reflected in the strict separation between ‘work’ and ‘leisure’ characteristic of late capitalist cultures where
‘leisure’ is increasingly associated with physical gratification (eating, drinking, the use of recreational drugs,
sex) and where the purpose of leisure activities is to help the individual to ‘switch off’ (from work, from worry,
from responsibility). It would be interesting to develop this analysis by examining wider social discourses
and cultural practices in order to better understand how such a mind-body separation functions, how it arose
historically and how it is maintained through various institutional practices.

Another avenue that could be pursued in a Foucauldian-style discourse analysis involves asking questions
about how the discursive positionings adopted by Anna in her construction of her engagement with extreme

Discourses and Discourse Analysis

Page 11 of 17
SAGE SAGE Research Methods
2014 SAGE Publications, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

sport may shape her actual experience of herself. By positioning herself within a discourse of addiction, Anna
accepts that there are powerful forces at work within her over which she has little or no control. This could
be experienced as disempowering; as a result it may be difficult for Anna to stop engaging in extreme sport
should she wish to do so (see Eiser, 1984; Gillies and Willig, 1997). Similarly, positioning oneself within a
dualist discourse may discourage attempts to integrate experiences which seem to originate in different parts
of the self, leading to an increasingly fragmented sense of self.

Appraisal of the Discursive Reading

In the worked example presented in this chapter, discourse analysis was used in order to better understand
how a research participant constructs her experiences of extreme sport through language within the context
of a research interview, how this positions her and what may be some of the consequences of these
constructions and positionings. The analysis has generated insights into the interviewee's use of rhetorical
devices and the discourses available to her which she could draw on to construct a particular version of
the extreme sport experience. It was acknowledged that a discursive analysis does not allow us to answer
questions about why Anna engages in extreme sport, the role of her personality within this or the nature of her
motivations. Furthermore, it has little to say about the nature or meaning of the experience of extreme sport as
such. Within the context of a discursive analysis questions about the inner world of research participants, their
motivations, desires and intentions are suspended; instead the researcher is concerned with how discursive
resources are used within particular contexts in order to construct meaning, and what happens as a result of
that, interpersonally, socially and in some cases (e.g. Foucauldian analysis) also in terms of the production
and availability of particular subjectivities. Some of the limitations and ethical challenges associated with such
an exclusive focus on language have been discussed earlier in this chapter (see p. 345). In the final section
we will identify some attempts at widening the focus of discourse analytic work, for example by advocating
‘binocularity’ in order to ‘thicken’ a discursive analysis (e.g. Frosh and Young, 2008) or by being more openly
interpretative (e.g. Bell, 2011).

Recent Developments and Outlook

As seems to be the case with most qualitative research methods, discourse analysis continues to evolve
into increasingly distinctive versions or varieties. Like grounded theory methodology, discourse analysis now
encompasses a wide range of approaches with quite different priorities and emphases (see e.g. Glynos, et
al., 2009; Wetherell et al., 2001). These reflect disciplinary differences as well as wider theoretical and also
political commitments on the part of discourse analysts. For example, in a recent review of developments
in discourse analysis in social psychology, Parker (2011) argues that while early discursive work in social
psychology was critical of psychology as a discipline, seeking to deconstruct and critically appraise the
processes which give rise to the ‘psy-complex’ itself (cf. Rose, 1985), the currently dominant version of
‘discursive psychology’ has become incorporated into the discipline as it offers an alternative (this time,
‘discursive’) account of what motivates and shapes human behaviour. Its preoccupation with the spoken word

Discourses and Discourse Analysis

Page 12 of 17
SAGE SAGE Research Methods
2014 SAGE Publications, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

and its lack of interest in anything that might be happening at the level of emotion or cognition have also
meant that this version of discursive psychology is associated with a relatively narrow, almost behaviouristic
focus (see Corcoran, 2009, and Billig, 2012, for examples of critical appraisals of some of the assumptions
underpinning discursive psychology).

In recent years discourse analysts have become increasingly concerned with the relationship between
discourse and subjectivity. While earlier Foucauldian discourse analytic work had already engaged with
questions about the ways in which available discourses may shape subjectivities, this work was still based
on the assumption that subjectivity is very much a product of discursive structures and processes (e.g.
Henriques et al., 1984). In other words, it was concerned with the consequences of discourse, its products
and productions, and its power to make us who we are. More recently, questions have been asked about
what underlying psychic structures and processes may lead speakers to invest in and commit themselves to
the discourses and positionings they deploy when they talk about their experiences. Here, the psychological
subject is seen as not (just) a product of discourse practices but as something which both shapes and is
shaped by them (see e.g. Frosh, 2010, for a detailed account of such a perspective). Research informed
by such a psychosocial approach combines a discursive analysis of participants' accounts with a further
reading which attempts to make sense of their discursive actions by developing hypotheses about their
deeper motivations and emotional investments (e.g. see Frosh and Young, 2008). Much of this work draws
on theoretical resources from psychoanalysis in order to accomplish this.

Another recent development in the field of discourse studies has been to reconnect discourse analytic
research with hermeneutics (see Wernet, Chapter 16, this volume), and to embrace and explicate much
more openly the process of interpretation (see Willig, Chapter 10, this volume) that is involved in discourse
analysis (e.g. Bell, 2011; see also Willig, 2012b). Here, the argument is that discourse analysis – that is
to say, the textual analysis of data involving a line-by-line scrutiny of the linguistic, structural and functional
characteristics of the discursive material – is really only one part of a wider project which could be referred
to as ‘discourse interpretation’ (Bell, 2011: 520). This is because the analysis of discourse forms part of a
wider reading of a text within its social and historical context, and this reading is informed by the researcher's
own perspective, the assumptions they bring to the analysis, and their theoretical and personal orientation.
The interaction between the researcher and the text generates a new understanding which is based upon
the researcher's critical reflection upon both their own and the text's claims and assumptions. Bell argues
that a purely descriptive approach to discursive work which produces only a ‘structural description of textual
features’ (2011: 520) is ultimately irrelevant; however, it could be argued that a purely descriptive analysis
is not only irrelevant but also impossible as even the identification of particular textual features requires a
commitment to an interpretative lens that attributes a particular significance to such textual features (see
Willig, 2012b: ch. 7).

To conclude, it is clear that different versions of discourse analysis are based on different conceptualizations
– of human agency, of subjectivity and of the primacy of language (or otherwise), and this means that they
address quite different research questions. It is, therefore, important that researchers who consider using a

Discourses and Discourse Analysis

Page 13 of 17
SAGE SAGE Research Methods
2014 SAGE Publications, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

discursive approach as a method of data analysis are clear about the question(s) they are asking of their
data and the kinds of insights they seek to gain from the analysis. This will enable them to select the type of
discourse analysis which best suits the aims of their study.

Further Reading

Gill, Rosalind (2000) ‘Discourse analysis’, in Edited by: Martin W.Bauer and George D.Gaskell (eds),
Qualitative Researching with Text, Image and Sound: A Practical Handbook. London: Sage. pp. 172–90.

Edited by: Hepburn, Alexa and Wiggins, Sally (eds) (2007) Discursive Research in Practice: New
Approaches to Psychology and Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/
10.1017/CBO9780511611216

Edited by: Wetherell, Margaret, Taylor, Stephanie and Yates, Simeon J. (eds) (2001) Discourse Theory
and Practice: A Reader. London: Sage.

References

Austin, John L. (1962) How to Do Things with Words: The William James Lectures. Oxford: Clarendon
Press.

Bell, Allan (2011) ‘Re-constructing Babel: Discourse analysis, hermeneutics and the interpretive arc’,
Discourse Studies, 13 (5): 519–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1461445611412699

Billig, Michael (2012) ‘Undisciplined beginnings, academic success, and discursive psychology’, British
Journal of Social Psychology, November. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8309.2011.02086.x.

Burr, Vivian (2002) The Person in Social Psychology. Hove: Psychology Press.

Butt, Trevor and Langdridge, Darren (2003) ‘The construction of self: The public reach into the private
sphere’, Sociology, 37 (3): 477–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00380385030373005

Corcoran, Tim (2009) ‘Second nature’, British Journal of Social Psychology, 48: 375–388. http://dx.doi.org/
10.1348/014466608X349513

Edited by: Drew, Paul and Heritage, John (eds) (1992) Talk at Work: Interactions in Institutional Settings.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Edwards, Tim (2011) Fashion in Focus: Concepts, Practices and Politics. London: Routledge.

Eiser, J. Richard (1984) ‘Addiction as attribution: Cognitive processes in giving up smoking’, in Edited by: J.
RichardEiser (ed.), Social Psychology and Behaviour Medicine. Chichester: Wiley. pp. 281–302.
Discourses and Discourse Analysis
Page 14 of 17
SAGE SAGE Research Methods
2014 SAGE Publications, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Fairclough, Norman (1995) Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. London: Longman.

Forrester, Michael A. (1996) Psychology of Language: A Critical Introduction. London: Sage.

Foucault, Michel (1982) ‘The subject and power: An afterword’, in Edited by: HubertDreyfus and
PaulRabinow (eds), Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press. pp. 208–26.

Frosh, Stephen (2010) Psychoanalysis Outside the Clinic: Interventions in Psychosocial Studies.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Frosh, Stephen and Young, Lisa Saville (2008) ‘Psychoanalytic approaches to qualitative psychology’, in
Edited by: CarlaWillig and WendyStainton-Rogers (eds), The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research in
Psychology. London: Sage. pp. 109–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781848607927

Gill, Rosalind (2011) ‘Bend it like Beckham: The challenge of reading and visual culture’, in Edited by:
PaulaReavey (ed.), Visual Methods in Psychology. Using and Interpreting Images in Qualitative Research.
Hove: Psychology Press. pp. 29–42.

Gillies, Val and Willig, Carla (1997) ‘“You get the nicotine and that in your blood”: Constructions of addiction
and control in women's accounts of cigarette smoking’, Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology,
7: 285–301. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/%28SICI%291099-1298%28199709%297:4%3C285::AID-
CASP407%3E3.0.CO;2-N

Glynos, Jason, Howarth, David, Norval, Aletta and Speed, Ewen (2009) ‘Discourse analysis: Varieties and
methods’, ESRC National Centre for Research Methods Review paper, August, NCRM/014.

Hall, Stuart (1997) ‘Introduction’, in Edited by: StuartHall (ed.), Representation: Cultural Representation and
Signifying Practices. London: Sage. pp. 1–11.

Henriques, Julian, Hollway, Wendy, Urwin, Cathy, Couze, Venn and Walkerdine, Valerie (1984)
Changing the Subject: Psychology, Social Regulation and Subjectivity. London: Methuen.

Holt, Amanda (2011) ‘Discourse analysis approaches’, in Edited by: NoraigFrost (ed.), Qualitative Research
Methods in Psychology: Combining Core Approaches. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill/Open University Press. pp.
66–91.

Kendall, Gavin and Wickham, Gary (1999) Using Foucault's Methods. London: Sage.

Labov, William (1966) The Social Stratification of English in New York City. New York: Center for Applied
Linguistics.

Langdridge, Darren (2004) Introduction to Research Methods and Data Analysis in Psychology. Harlow:
Pearson Education.
Discourses and Discourse Analysis
Page 15 of 17
SAGE SAGE Research Methods
2014 SAGE Publications, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Mishler, Elliott, G. (1995) ‘Models of narrative analysis: A typology’, Journal of Narrative and Life History, 5
(2): 87–123.

Nightingale, David and Cromby, John (1999) Social Constructionist Psychology: A Critical Analysis of
Theory and Practice. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Parker, Ian (1992) Discourse Dynamics: Critical Analysis for Social and Individual Psychology. London:
Routledge.

Parker, Ian (1994) ‘Reflexive research and the grounding of analysis: Social psychology and the psy-
complex’, Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, 4 (4): 239–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/
casp.2450040404

Parker, Ian (1999) Critical Textwork: An Introduction to Varieties of Discourse Analysis. Buckingham: Open
University Press.

Parker, Ian (2011) ‘Discursive social psychology now’, British Journal of Social Psychology, July: 1–7.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8309.2011.02046.x.

Pomerantz, Anita (1986) ‘Extreme case formulations: A new way of legitimating claims’, in Edited by:
G.Button et al. (eds), Human Studies (Special Issue: Interaction and Language Use), 9: 219–30.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00148128

Potter, Jonathan and Hepburn, Alexa (2005) ‘Qualitative interviews in psychology: Problems and
possibilities’, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 2: 38–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1191/1478088705qp045oa

Potter, Jonathan and Wetherell, Margaret (1987) Discourse and Social Psychology: Beyond Attitudes and
Behaviour. London: Sage.

Reavey, Paula (2011) Visual Methods in Psychology Using and Interpreting Images in Qualitative Research.
Hove: Psychology Press.

Riessman, Catherine, K. (1993) Narrative Analysis. London: Sage.

Rose, Nikolas (1985) Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self. London: Free Association Books.

Schegloff, Emanuel, A. (1968) ‘Sequencing in conversational openings’, American Anthropologist, 70:

1075–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/aa.1968.70.6.02a00030

Tannen, Deborah (1990) You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. New York: William
Morrow.

Wetherell, Margaret (1998) ‘Positioning and interpretative repertoires: Conversation analysis and post-
structuralism in dialogue’, Discourse and Society, 9 (3): 387–413. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/

Discourses and Discourse Analysis

Page 16 of 17
SAGE SAGE Research Methods
2014 SAGE Publications, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

0957926598009003005

Wetherell, Margaret, Taylor, Stephanie and Yates, Simeon J. (2001) Discourse as Data: A Guide for
Analysis. London: Sage.

Willig, Carla (2004) ‘Discourse analysis and health psychology’, in Edited by: MichaelMurray (ed.), Critical
Health Psychology. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 155–70.

Willig, Carla (2005) ‘A phenomenological investigation of the experience of taking part in extreme sport’, MA
thesis, Regent's College, London.

Willig, Carla (2008a) Introducing Qualitative Research in Psychology, 2nd edition. Maidenhead: McGraw-
Hill/Open University Press.

Willig, Carla (2008b) ‘A phenomenological investigation of the experience of taking part in extreme sport’,
Journal of Health Psychology, 13 (5): 690–702. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1359105307082459

Willig, Carla (2012a) ‘Perspectives on the epistemological bases for qualitative research’, in Edited by:
H.Cooper (ed.), The Handbook of Research Methods in Psychology. Washington, DC:
AmericanPsychological Association. pp. 5–21.

Willig, Carla (2012b) Qualitative Analysis and Interpretation in Psychology. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill/Open
University Press.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1953) Philosophical Investigations. Malden: Blackwell.

Wodak, Ruth (1996) Disorders of Discourse. Harlow: Addison Wesley Longman.

http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781446282243.n23

Discourses and Discourse Analysis

Page 17 of 17