Conversational Realities: Constructing Life Through LanguageThis imaginative and original book challenges the traditional scientific view that naturally occurring psychological and sociological `realities' are to be discovered underlying appearances. Instead, it claims that such orderly realities are both socially constructed and sustained within the context of people's disorderly, everyday conversational activities. John Shotter's interdisciplinary analysis highlights the socially contested but imaginary nature of many of the `things' we talk about in social life and illuminates the processes of their construction. He offers a broad-ranging exploration of the rhetorical, argumentative nature of conversational communication, using examples from psychotherapy, management and everyday |
Contents
A RHETORICALRESPONSIVE VERSION | 17 |
Knowing from Within | 33 |
Dialogue and Rhetoric in the Construction of Social | 50 |
Copyright | |
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already argue aspects attempt background Bakhtin basic Bhaskar Billig Chapter circumstances claims cognitivism communication concept context conversational dialogue Dinka discourse discussion Don Bannister entities epistemology essentially contested concepts Estragon everyday existence fact feel forms of talk formulated function Garfinkel give Godot Harré hermeneutical Hopi human ideology imaginary individuals interaction involved John Shotter kind knowledge language language-games linguistic lives London mathematical means mental metaphor mind narrative nature objects one's ontology orderly ourselves people's philosophy possible postmodern practical problem produced psychoanalysis psychology realism reality relation representations responsive rhetorical rhetorical-responsive Rom Harré Rorty scientific sense Shotter situation social activity Social Construction social constructionism social constructionist society speaker speaking speech structure systematic theory things thought tradition of argumentation understanding University Press utterances Vico Volosinov Vygotsky waiting for Godot whole Whorf Wittgenstein words