A socially organized basis for displays of cognition: procedural orientation to evidential turns in psychic-sitter interaction.
Discursive psychology has been concerned with investigating how aspects of mind--cognitions, personality, identity, memory, attitudes, attributions, etc.--are warrantably invoked and indexed in the particulars of language use in a variety of discursive contexts. By drawing upon the method and findings of conversation analysis (CA), researchers have been able to show how displays of mind may be achieved with respect to the speakers' production of discursive activities, such as warranting versions of events. One of the key features of CA is the identification of sequences of conversational actions and their oriented-to-properties. This study argues that a focus on sequential activity can be harnessed to discursive psychological investigations to reveal how the relevance of displays of mind is embedded in the structure of verbal activities. To illustrate this methodological recommendation, the study describes a recurrent interactional episode in consultations between psychics and their clients, or sitters, in which participants realize collaboratively the demonstration of (albeit parapsychological) cognition.
Wooffitt
R
R
Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 5XH, UK. r.wooffitt@soc.surrey.ac.uk
D003071:Cognition; D003142:Communication; D006801:Humans; D010268:Parapsychology