Turn to Discourse and DISCOURSE ANALYSIS <last class>

• What did we learn?• That we make interpretations about

speakers• we fell judgments about poor guys like ‘Broken

Glass’ - on the basis of very little data - “demeaning” “condescending”

• Being descriptive - not critical!• But we have to back them up!!!

Last Class -- on Discourseand Discourse Analysis

New York TimesSunday, Feb 5, 2005

Turn to NARRATIVE and NARRATIVE ANALYSIS

• What is Narrative?• Why is Narrative central

to Psychology?• Exercises

Second Class on DiscourseNarrative and Narrative Analysis

What is NARRATIVE?BEING Human Requires Telling Stories

Understanding Humans Requires Understanding Stories

• Bochner’s approach to Story Telling• Our approach to the Analysis of Narratives

• How is the story TOLD?

• Why these particular words?

• Why this particular structure?

BEING DESCRIPTIVE Versus

JUST listening to or collecting others’ stories

Building on Potter’s Discursive Psychology

• Action Orientation• What is this story supposed to accomplish

• Situation– sequential arrangement (what happened before + after?)– institutional arrangements (classroom vs campfire)

• rhetorical organization (what is countered and/or aligned with?)

• Construction– A version of the world in the story-world– versions of others (and of SELF)

action orientation +SELF-CONSTRUCTION in story-telling

• When I tell a story (whether it is about MYSELF or about OTHERS) I reveal the PERSPECTIVE from which I view the world

• This will be taken as “speaking about myself” (=making a statement as to who I am – as how I want to ‘come across’)

QuickTime™ and aDV/DVCPRO - NTSC decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

What is the Story about?• A boy <a fat boy - Davie Hogan>

• A fat boy who always gets teased• A pie-eating contest• A huge barforama• A revenge• Davie’s revenge for always getting teased• A kid taking on an adversary environment• A kid taking on the adult world• Teengae fantasies (in America)• Growing up in the American culture (the 60ties?)• Coming of age

The STORY stands for something

• Something MORE than just what happened• It’s more than ‘look at that’

• The story reveals aspects of ‘my self’ - of how I make sense of myself

• The story reveals aspects of how I want to come across to others

Who ARE these four boys?

• We make assumptions about the participants:– How do they <want to?> come across by their

contributions to the story?– How do they arrange themselves sequentially?– How do they accomplish ‘a sense of who they

are’?

• How do we arrive at OUR interpretations?

What is Narrative Analysis?and

what can we learn from it

• How does the speaker position him-/herself?– Vis-à-vis characters in the story (e.g., Davie Hogan, the

folks at the pie-eating contest, etc.)

– Vis-à-vis those being addressed as audience: the other three around the campfire

– Vis-à-vis him-/herself: what these events MEAN to me

• Story as co-produced– All 4 participants take part in self-constructions

Narrative Analysis

• To figure out their ‘sense of self’– How THEY make sense of who they are

• How they want to be understood– situated in context (here: campfire talk)

• IDENTITY– How participants configure a sense of self

• Claim their “identities” in talk <in story-talk>

• We are DESCRIBING <<“felling judgments” on “very

little data”>> these claims by use of their stories --- from THEIR POINT OF VIEW <ethnography>

• Relate back to Fish, Maracek, Shank + Goldenberg