Representing Reality

Jonathan Potter is Professor of Discourse Analysis and Dean of the School of Social, Political and Geographical Sciences at Loughborough University. He has studied topics such as scientific argumentation, current affairs television, riots, racism, relationship counselling and child protection helplines. His main focus recently has been on the study of helpline interaction, on interaction during family mealtimes, on the conceptualization of cognition in interaction research, and on issues of psychology and institutions. He a world authority on qualitative methods and has written on discourse analysis and discursive psychology, focus groups, the study of psychological issues. Recently has raised questions about the over-reliance of social scientists on open-ended qualitative interviews. He has taught workshops and short courses on analysis in 10 different countries.

`Since the publication of Potter & Wetherell′s influential Discourse and Social Psychology, which laid the ground-plan for their version of discourse analysis, work has continued apace... As a progress report, the present text provides a valuable up-date, summarizing the main lines of development and usefully pulling together material heretofore only available from a disparate range of sources... As an introduction to this type of analysis, this is an admirable book which can be recommended to students with confidence, and is likely also to become an indispensable source of reference for those researching fact construction′ - Discourse & Society`Potter leaves the reader wanting more-which is a pretty good place to leave a reader′ - Language in Society

• IntroductionSocial Studies of ScienceEthnomethodology and Conversation AnalysisSemiology - Post-Structuralism - PostmodernismDiscourse and ConstructionInterests and Category EntitlementsConstructing Out-there-nessWorking Up RepresentationsCriticizing Facts