Conversation and Cognition

Written by some of the leading figures in the fields of conversation analysis, discursive psychology and ethnomethodology, this book looks at the challenging implications of discourse-based approaches to the topic of cognition. This volume shows how cognition can be reworked using analyses of engaging examples of real life interaction such as conversations between friends, relationship counselling sessions and legal hearings. It includes an extended introduction that overviews the history and context of cognitive research and its basic assumptions to provide a frame for understanding the specific examples discussed, as well as surveying cutting edge debates about discourse and cognition. This comprehensive and accessible book opens up important ways of understanding the relation between language and cognition.

'This book has the potential to do in psychology what the classic edited works in CA … have done in sociology. However, it has also initiated a serious cross-fertilization of ideas between interaction researchers in the disciplines of (primarily sociology and psychology, and will bring concerns and ideas developed in DP to new audiences.' Discourse Studies, 'Conversation and Cognition is a remarkable volume … The burgeoning field of discursive psychology may still have one or two philosophical kinks to iron out of its program, though it largely deserves the credit for bringing these issues into sharp relief. In my opinion on this particular showing, ethnomethology stands apart in its clarity on the relations between cognition and conversation.' Human Studies

Hedwig te Molder is a senior lecturer in Communication Science in the Social Science Department at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. She has published on a number of topics including government communicators' talk, helpline interaction and computer-mediated communication. Jonathan Potter is Professor of Discourse Analysis in the Social Sciences Department at Loughborough University. He has published ten books, including Discourse and Social Psychology (with Margaret Wetherell, 1987), more than forty book chapters and sixty journal articles.