Speer2007

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Speer2007
BibType ARTICLE
Key Speer2007
Author(s) Susan A. Speer
Title On recruiting conversation analysis for critical realist purposes
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Conversation Analysis, Discourse Analysis, Critical discourse analysis
Publisher
Year 2007
Language English
City
Month
Journal Theory & Psychology
Volume 17
Number 1
Pages 125–135
URL Link
DOI 10.1177/0959354307073155
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

In this paper I provide a summary and evaluation of some of the key features of Sims-Schouten, Riley and Willig's multi-level, `critical realist' approach to discourse analysis, as exemplified in their study of motherhood, childcare and female employment. I argue that (i) their analyses recruit and depend on arguments and techniques from the very perspectives they criticize, and (ii) those techniques are deployed in a somewhat ad hoc fashion. Consequently, I suggest that the authors fail to provide a distinctive or systematic operationalization of a critical realist discourse analysis. I end by arguing that if critical realists really want to understand what (purportedly extra-discursive) factors account for why participants say what they do, then they need to begin by adopting a more reflexive approach to their data, and pay serious attention to analysing the interview as an interview, and as an occasion for interaction in its own right.

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