One of the aims of discursive psychological research
is to look closely at the kind of talk people produce in groups.
I first started using discourse analysis to look at
the ways in which
we sort of discursively
produce our identities through talk.
I was interested in
looking at the ways in which young people
talk about themselves, talk about their relationships.
And I think what was particularly interesting were in the group
discussions where you had, you know, young women and young men.
And the ways in which the process of trying to negotiate their identities,
it wasn’t a straight forward process of
this is who I am,
it was a process of
discussion of negotiation, of drawing on different
kinds of ideas or discourses
in order to frame their identities.
… cos I was gonna say, I think people are paying more, less interest in what
for example, their neighbours, like this is anyone,
what they’re doing. Like today I was on the bus and
these two boys were at the back of the bus and they were talking about:
oh getting a cigarette, oh, here’s one,
and this man who sat next him, he said, he was reading his paper and he just
looked up and said: Are you old enough to do that?
It was a very active process between them,
and
sometimes it was a very challenging process because
people challenge each other in talk.
It isn’t passive process.
It’s about
challenging
and establishing identities, but those identities are shifting
as that process and negotiation takes place.
Who is more likely to get mugged round this table?
Well it isn’t even these two, it’s gonna be me or him,
you know what I mean?
Well I think it’s more us, to be honest.
They’re more likely to go for a girl, to grab their bag
than to go for … Cos I mean we, I mean you can see straight away where our goods are.
Interpretive repertoire is one of the main ways in which
discourse analysts approach their text.
So an interpretive repertoire is really the common sense
ways in which we make sense of our social world.
The terms we use, the metaphors we draw on,
and they’re already available in our culture,
they’re part of our society, part of the way in which
we talk about particular things.
I was saying to my dad the other day, you know,
I wonder … they were talking about buying a pint on the radio
and how cheap it was,
and I said to him: how much was it like 30 years ago for you to buy a pint?
And he said I could buy a round in the pub for like 50p.
And I was like … it’s not possible.
And he’s like, honestly. That’s how …
They were drawing on particular repertoires,
ways of talking about living in London.
I think that you have to be really more careful in London about the choices that you make.
And those choices will have a big impact
on your life if you don’t make the right one.
I think there’s a lot of pressure to do that.
I feel a lot of pressure to do that.
Well you can fall through the cracks so easily in London.
Where as I was saying, you know, smaller towns …
We can also see the ways in which subject positions get taken up within those repertoires.
So a subject position
is about the availability of
ways of categorising, ways of understanding
the particular position you can take up within an interpretive repertoire.
The last time I saw someone get the crap kicked out
of them was about you know, four or five months ago.
I don’t think the sense of community is there any more. Like if … that would have
happened many many years ago, they’d be:
Oi, stop that! And someone would run over
and you know, break it up and find out what’s going on.
Now, they just, oh, staring. And sometimes you’re a
bit frightened to look as well.
I don’t know though, like, see I’ve a problem with something. I think it’s very
easy to turn round and go oh, you know, the world’s falling
apart and it wasn’t like that in the good old days.
It was.
The notion of ideological dilemmas comes out of this idea that
interpretive repertoires, although they’re
part of the common sense ways of talking
about things, they can also be contradictory.
And that when we speak about things,
we draw on particular arguments and descriptions
but they don’t always remain consistent.
We don’t stick to a particular way
of talking about something
irrespective of the context in which we’re talking about it.
And so as a consequence, what you can find is that
we shift within
the repertoire that we’re using.
Like at the same time I find London really hard, like, work for me,
cos it’s really busy at the time
and when you’re alone and while you find friends and,
you can go out, but
it’s nice cos you got lots of opportunities and choices and,
it’s great.
That consistency isn’t a problem of the individual.
It’s the nature of the way in which we use
interpretive repertoires
in relation to the context of the conversation
or the broad base context in which we find ourselves.