Discourse Analysis Legitimacy as a Principal Paradigm for Contemporary Social Psychology - Essay Example

Reading between the lines: Dis analysis' legitimacy as a principal paradigm for contemporary social psychology The past decades have witnessed a heightened consciousness in global society of the underlying meaning of words and discourse. This heightened consciousness has been best exemplified by the exaggerated efforts of modern society to be politically correct. Racial, discriminatory, and sexual slurs that had previously been prevalent in social discourse have been attacked and squeezed out from mainstream media and society. This increased sensitivity on the underlying nuances of language and expression has also been accompanied by a similar increase in the appreciation of discourse as a valuable source of data and social insight for research. The value of analyzing discourse in the study of social interactions and individual behavior has become central to an ongoing debate within social psychology in regards to the legitimacy of such analysis as a leading paradigm for contemporary social psychology. This paper seeks to advance the position that discourse analysis holds a valid claim in becoming Contemporary Social Psychology's principal paradigm. This position is supported by two main arguments that shall be discussed in this paper. To begin with, the development and usage of discourse analysis through the years has been effectively responsive to valid objections against discourse imperialism, thereby ushering discourse analysis' successful integration into the field of social psychology. Secondly, it is argued that a comparison of contending research paradigms in social psychology will place discourse analysis as the most practicable and productive paradigm for research in Contemporary Social Psychology. A discussion of discourse analysis' position in social psychology must first examine the paradigm itself and how it is defined. As a research paradigm in social psychology, discourse analysis emphasizes the role of language and action in the understanding of social behavior. In its earlier stages, it "drew attention to the importance of meaning and the accounts people gave of their actions."(Parker, 1990) Potter et al (1993) have also constructed a definition of discourse analysis as a "theory of, and method of studying, social practices and the actions that constitute them," thereby expanding its scope beyond the study of textual expression. It has also been described as a "noncognitive, functional approach to the analysis of talk and text."(Beattie & Doherty, 1995) As a research paradigm, discourse analysis and the range of work which fall under it has been quite elusive to the construction of strict definitions because it is "used in a more encompassing fashion to refer to large bodies of diverse work." (Potter, 1990) Different researches which claimed to employ the paradigm have been vastly diverse, with subtle theoretical and methodological differences in their application of the paradigm.(Potter, 1990) Parker and Burman (1993), in their review of selected discourse analytic research, however, point out the presence of a common thread which unite these diverse researches: "What the different theoretical models used by the contributors to this book share is a common concern with the ways language produces and constrains meaning, where meaning does, or does not only, reside within individuals' heads, and where social conditions give rise to the forms of talk available.. discourse analysis offers a social account of subjectivity by attending to the linguistic resources by which the sociopolitical realm is produced and reproduced." (Burman & Parker, 1993, p.3) The unifying bond between varying approaches to the paradigm of discourse analysis, therefore, lies in how such approaches are all geared towards the interpretation and study of discourse under the theory that discourses reveal an account of both individual and social biases, constructs, and conditions. Apart from the role of discourse in revealing inner and social conditions, much of discourse analytic research, especially in cognitive psychology, is also characterized by the perception of discourse as a constructive tool that influences and shapes the way individuals think and behave.(Potter,1990; Parker,1990) Whereas all approaches under discourse analysis agree that discourse shapes and mirrors social behavior, the degree by which discourse produces and reproduces such behavior has actually been a crucial matter of debate. It is from this debate that the strongest attack against discourse analysis figures in. In a controversial paper that provoked much reaction within social psychology, Parker (1990), for example, proposed a radical framework for the analysis of discourse which emphasized discourse as an independent object of study which by itself may provide a sufficient analysis of social conditions. Abrams and Hogg's (1990) response to Parker's definition of discourse attacked the extent by which such definition credited too much value to discourse's role in shaping social processes and conditions. They decried the analysis of text and discourse to the exclusion of other elements such as context and internal processes in that such analysis provides "only limited value unless it is placed in the context of what people are doing with it." (Abrams & Hoggs, 1990) In other words, they argued that drawing conclusions based solely on the analysis of discourse runs the risk of being deceptive and incomplete because it fails to take into account other factors which influence social behavior and social discourse itself. Accordingly, text and discourse can become more valuable to social psychology if they are analyzed not just independently, as was proposed by Parker (1990), but also analyzed in accordance to the context wherein they are found and used through the classical methods of systematic observation and behavior analysis. (Abrams & Hoggs,1990) Abrams and Hogg's critique (1990) emphasized how social psychology's shift towards discourse analysis as presented by Parker (1990) was bound to lead to a decline in the validity and significance of social psychology as a scientific discipline unless such shift is abetted by the incorporation of other theories and methods already essential to social psychology. This particular attack on Parker's (1990) reading of discourse analysis' role in social psychology did not so much target the validity of discourse analysis as a method in as much as it warned against Parker's unwarranted magnification of discourse's role in the construction of social reality. This magnification is said to stem from how Parker's conception of discourse analysis "attributes agency to the system rather than the user of the system". (Abrams & Hogg, 1990) Discourse was presented by Parker (1990) not as a tool wielded by the individual to express his conception of social reality, but rather as an independent phenomena that constructs and influences the individual's perception of reality. This violent objection posed against Parker's prior model of discourse analysis has been validated by developments in discourse analytic research as well as proponents of discourse analysis themselves. Potter (1990), himself an eager proponent of discourse analysis, agreed that Parker's (1990) argument for an analysis of discourse is severely limited by its emphasis on discourse as an object of study and its subsequent withdrawal from the study of the social and linguistic context wherein such discourse is located. Instead of locating discourse within its specific context, Parker's (1990) model of discourse analysis tended to exclude "the actual working of discourse as a constitutive part of social practices situated in specific contexts". (Potter, 1990) Too much emphasis or magnification of discourse per se as an object of study, as may be perceived in Parker's prior model, was said to abandon the action-orientated feature of discourse. (Potter, 1990) In contrast to such magnification, Potter (1990) stressed that the study and analysis of discourse should be situated within the social practices, procedure and actions that accompany and are supplemented by the discourse under study. "The limitation with this approach is that the discourses in this view become formed as coherent and carefully systematized wholes which take on the status of causal agents for analytic purposes. That is, the processes of interest are seen as those of (abstract) discourse working on another (abstract) discourse." (Potter, 1990, p.208) The model of discourse analysis previously supplied in Parker's (1990) earlier paper thus failed as a paradigm for social psychology from the viewpoint not only of discourse analysis' opponents but from the viewpoint of its allies as well. Their criticism against the over-magnification of discourse's role in constructing social behavior served as a word of caution against the total abandonment of social context in social psychology. What is notable, however, is that such criticism did not in any way seek to reject discourse analysis as a paradigm but instead called for its development through integration with other theories and methods, thereby also accepting the value of discourse analysis in the field of Social Psychology. Instead of weakening discourse analysis, the objections previously raised against Parker's over-magnification of discourse provided direction for the development of discourse analytic research. Discourse analytic researches have continued to increase in number within the field of Social Psychology, but they have predominantly been in line with the call for integration with other methods and paradigms and their discussions have been noticeably resistant of discursive imperialism. In Stenner's reading of jealousy discourse, for example, there is no attempt to portray the analysis as a "finished definitive statement" of social reality. (Stenner, 1993) On the contrary, the succeeding discussion of the discursive reading in the said study expressly cautions against such a misconception. The dangers posed by the over-magnification of discourse's role as a sole authoritative basis for the analysis of social relationships and behavior is thereby avoided. On the same note, a study on the discursive construction of victims and witnesses of paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland bases its analysis of the firsthand accounts provided by two interviewees not only on their employed discourse but also within the social context of such violence. (Beattie & Doherty, 1995) Both studies also conspicuously pursue their research through the incorporation of the interview method as a tool for discourse analysis. Telling also is Parker's (1993) own acknowledgement of discursive imperialism as a problem that must be avoided, if not, resolved, for the further development of discourse analysis. What these researches and developments in discourse analytic research ultimately display is an ongoing integration and realignment of discourse analysis with social psychology theories, concerns and methods. The issue against discursive imperialism has, rather than being fatal to the paradigm of discourse analysis, been essential in how discourse analysis as a research paradigm in social psychology has come to shape itself. Discourse analysis has thus shown its resilience as a paradigm in social psychology by the way that it has managed to withstand severe criticism and use the same criticism in furthering its own development. Apart from the main critique provoked by the threat of discursive imperialism and the over-magnification of discourse, Abrams and Hogg (1990) also posed an interesting challenge, expressing the need for discourse analysis to "demonstrate its superiority in dealing with the same phenomena and issues that concern social psychology". We now turn to address this challenge in analyzing how the paradigm of discourse analysis provides a superior alternative to other paradigms and methods now available to Social Psychology. The question of whether or not discourse analysis could possibly become the principal paradigm for contemporary social psychology brings us also to inquire into the strength of other contending paradigms, if there are any at all. These questions become significant in the light of a methodological crisis within social psychology that arguably weakens the strength of other contending paradigms, particularly the formerly dominant paradigm of experimentalism. The Experimentalist paradigm previously dominating Social Psychology in its earlier decades has become subject to numerous attacks from both inside and outside of the discipline. (Haslam,2001) It has also become unfeasible with the advent of ethical and moral issues concerning the manipulation of humans. Arguably, the very studies in Social Psychology most cited for the depth of insight they provided into social behavior are, to a frightening consistency, the same studies most condemned for their unethical methods. Stanley Milgram's (1963) experiments on obedience, and the Stanford prison experiment of Zimbardo and company (1971), for example, have both garnered widespread condemnation within and without the discipline in as much as they have also been widely acknowledged as two of the most meaningful studies conducted in Social Psychology. Nowhere else has social psychology's objective of revealing internal truths in social behavior been most achieved. Experimental studies such as those mentioned above can no longer be replicated in contemporary social psychology. First of all, the validity of findings gained from similarly constructed experiments today are significantly compromised by disciplinary requisites on informed consent. The value and significance of Milgram's (1963) findings, for example, lay on the truthfulness of his collected data which in turn relied on the truthfulness of his participants' behavior. The analysis which revealed a shocking behavioral tendency to obey authority orders even to the point of sacrificing learned moral values (Milgram,1963) held water only in so far as the observed behavior upon which such analysis was based on could not be perceived as contrived, confounded or exaggerated on the part of the participants who displayed the behavior. The truthfulness of Milgram's participants in regards to their displayed obedient behavior in the experiment lay on the very fact that these participants had been led to believe that they were participating in an experiment on learning and negative reinforcement.(Milgram,1963) Such deception can no longer coexist with ethical guidelines which demand informed consent on the part of participants. Even if experimenters can figure out a way to prevent informed consent from affecting the resulting behavior of interest, ethical constraints against the manipulation of humans as subjects in behavioral experiments also hinder the replication of meaningful experiments on behavior. Human participants cannot be exposed to scenarios that may be deemed as potentially harmful to their well-being. The harsh conditions which bred the behavioral transformation of undergraduate student participants in Zimbardo's (1971) prison experiment cannot be employed in any experiment today without risking popular condemnation. This becomes problematic for social psychology in that a large part of the discipline's area of interest involves social behavior in stressful and unpleasant scenarios. We are therefore hard-pressed to conceive how the experimental paradigm can be applied to study the same areas of interest pursued by Beattie and Doherty (1995), or even that of Stenner.(1993) Whereas Abrams and Hoggs (1990) contend that discourse analysis is incapable of explaining particular social phenomena, the experimental paradigm suffers more in its actual inability to even study such phenomena in the contemporary period. Absent the feasibility of a truly productive Experimental paradigm for social psychology, studies in social psychology have moved on towards other methods to study social behavior. To compensate for the loss of experimental design which allowed experimenters to ensure real participant behavior, however, studies in social psychology have turned to a hybrid of qualitative and quantitative methods that stubbornly persisted in the use of statistical methods for data reliability and validity.(Haslam, 2001) Although experimental methods are no longer employed in most studies, the experimental paradigm has still left at its wake biases within the discipline which continue to insist that a study's significance lies almost entirely on the universality and reliability of its results. (Haslam,2001) For this reason, survey studies susceptible to statistical analysis have become one of the most common methods employed in social psychology upon the demise of the experimental method. Discourse analysis, through the subjective interpretation of action, language, or expression, has thus also been criticized for its inherent incompatibility with statistical analysis. Accordingly, the incompatibility of data from discourse analysis with statistical methods prevents discourse analytic research from providing adequate degrees of confidence in regards to how the data retrieved from the study is representative of other groups. (Abrams & Hogg,1990) This line of criticism, however, is severely flawed in that it is based on criteria that were applicable only to the experimental paradigm. Discourse analysis should not be perceived merely as a replacement paradigm for the experimental paradigm subject to be measured by the same criteria employed in the experimental paradigm. As has been stressed by Parker,(1993) the aims of the experimental research is vastly different from the aims of discourse analytic research. Discourse analytic research does not chase after psychological universals, and thus does not feign to represent the entire population. (Burman & Parker, 1993) Whereas the strength of findings and data in experimental research lay on the representativeness of such data to the entire population, discourse analysis gains its strength from its descriptive power of the specific social situation that is being studied. As shown by the example of Stenner,(1993) data and analysis gained from discourse analytic research are not constructed to be interpreted as universal truths for all situations similar to the one studied. The distinction between the aims of the past experimental paradigm with the younger paradigm of discourse analysis demands the application of different criteria in judging their strengths and weaknesses. Whereas it may be conceded that discourse analytic research have low statistical significance, it may also be contended that experimental research for its part has low descriptive power. Accepting these differences between the two paradigms will thereby nullify the contentions of discourse analysis' critics who judge it through criteria that are completely inapplicable to how discourse analysis is used. Finally, recognizing the distinction between the aims of experimental research and discourse analytic research, as well as the impact of such aims on the direction of contemporary social psychology's progress, is essential in understanding the status of discourse analysis in contemporary social psychology. If it is measured by how much it achieves the same aims that the experimental paradigm formerly set for itself, discourse analysis would not fare well. Its worth in contemporary social psychology, however, lies in its current practicability as a research method, its descriptive power, and on how it provides a new and original vein of research that is both different and equal to previous experimental research. "This refocusing of research in Psychology, both in terms of the substantive issues we can address, and in terms of the variety of methods we could use, is the most important and complex contribution of discourse analysis to the discipline." (Burman & Parker, 1993, p.2) The claim of discourse analysis as the principal paradigm of contemporary social psychology therefore does not rely on any attempt to replicate experimental social psychology but rather in its ability to define and distinguish contemporary social psychology from its predecessor. Word Count: 3030 BIBLIOGRAPHY Abrams, D. & Hogg, M. (1990). The context of discourse: Let's not throw out the baby with the bath water. Philosophical Psychology, 3, 219-225. Beattie, G. & Doherty, K. (1995). "I saw what really happened": The discursive construction of victims and perpetrators in first-hand accounts of paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 14, 408-433. Burman, E. & Parker, I. 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