THE TURN TO DISCOURSE IN SOCIAL-PSYCHOLOGY

We discuss the emerging turn to discursive social psychology as an alt ernative to experimental social psychology. We note that the barriers to change are rooted in the history of the discipline, in the failure of researchers to recognize the distinction between movements and acti ons and in their reluctance to switch from positivist to post-positivi st criteria. We outline the tenets of discursive psychology and of its associated method, discourse analysis. Illustrations of discourse ana lysis are drawn primarily from a recent study of date rape. Throughout , we emphasize the centrality of discourse in social life and the defi nition of the social being as Home loquens.