Reflecting on Your Own Talk: The Discursive Action Method at Work

Abstract

This chapter describes how we developed a Conversation Analysis-based intervention approach, which we call the Discursive Action Method. The method aims to make people critically aware of how they talk and, on that basis, to help them shape their own practices. The method has its roots in an early statement of what Edwards and Potter termed their ‘Discursive Action Model’ (Edwards and Potter, 1993) and is based on insights from Conversation Analysis and Discursive Psychology¹ more generally (Edwards, 1997; Edwards and Potter, 1992; Hepburn and Wiggins, 2007; Hutchby and Wooffitt, 1998; Potter, 1996; Potter and Te Molder, 2005).