Jonathan Potter

“Discursive psychology starts from the assumption that psychology is constructed, managed, and displayed in discourse.”

“People do not just passively describe the world; they actively construct versions of it.”

“Fact construction is a central feature of discourse.”

“There is no neutral, objective description; all descriptions are constructions.”

“Our aim is to move from treating participants' discourse as a transparent medium...to a concern with discourse as a topic in its own right.”

“The task is not to get 'behind' the talk to the 'real' events, but to study the way the talk is constructed to present a particular version of events.”

“A version of the world is not simply there to be described; it is produced or constructed through descriptive work.”

“Discourse analysis is not just a method; it is a perspective on language as a form of social action.”

“The focus is on how people use language in their everyday lives to accomplish social actions.”

“Attributions of stake and interest are potent rhetorical devices for discounting or undermining a person's account.”

“We are interested in what people do with their talk, rather than what their talk says about them.”

“Instead of treating descriptions as pictures of the world, we can treat them as actions in the world.”