Discourse and Cognition (Paperback)

Offering a profound yet accessible engagement with language and cognition from a discourse-based viewpoint, Discourse and Cognition is a reappraisal of some of the deepest debates in psychology in light of the most exciting theoretical and empirical developments in recent years. Author Derek Edwards examines a wide range of theory and debate to show how the dominant, cognitive approach to psychology falls, and makes a compelling case for seeing language as best understood as a kind of activity, as discourse. The book is founded in ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, linguistic philosophy, and social science. These influences underpin a fascinating intellectual survey ranging across cognitism, discursive psychology, shared knowledge, categories and metaphor, emotion and narrative. The emphasis throughout is on the value of close empirical study of text and talk, through which the topics of mind, world, and "who we are" seen as "ways of talking." Engagingly written throughout, Discourse and Cognition will be essential reading for students and academics in social, discursive and cognitive psychology and across the social sciences.