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Interaction Analysis and Psychology: A Dialogical Perspective

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Abstract

Interaction analysis is not a prerogative of any discipline in social sciences. It has its own history within each disciplinary field and is related to specific research objects. From the standpoint of psychology, this article first draws upon a distinction between factorial and dialogical conceptions of interaction. It then briefly presents the basis of a dialogical approach in psychology and focuses upon four basic assumptions. Each of them is examined on a theoretical and on a methodological level with a leading question: to what extent is it possible to develop analytical tools that are fully coherent with dialogical assumptions? The conclusion stresses the difficulty of developing methodological tools that are fully consistent with dialogical assumptions and argues that there is an unavoidable tension between accounting for the complexity of an interaction and using methodological tools which necessarily “monologise” this complexity.

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Notes

  1. There are of course numerous exceptions (for example Marková et al. 1995; Rommetveit, 1992; the trend of cultural psychology (e.g., Bruner, 1990, 1996); Wertsch, 1991); the trend of discursive psychology (e.g., Billig, 1996).

  2. The original language of all excerpts is French. In the transcripts [...] indicates an overlap, words in capitals indicate that the speaker stresses a word and + means a brief pause.

  3. Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children.

  4. In this respect, the paradox, as Linell (2009) emphasises, is that dialogism, or any other theory, is also a monologising practice.

  5. Let us note, however, that the role of object (“physical thing”) was already a special concern for Mead (1932).

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Acknowledgments

This article owes a lot to Ivana Marková, Per Linell and Anne Salazar Orvig with whom, from September to December 2003, I was involved in a research project supported by the International Programme for Advanced Studies, run by the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme Paris, in collaboration with the Columbia Institute for Scholars at Reid Hall, Paris, and the European Laboratory of Social Psychology (LEPS) of the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme. This project provided me many opportunities to discuss their conceptions of dialogism and to profit from their expertise. I also would like to thank Carlo Prevignano who gave me precious advices in the revision of a former version of this article.

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Grossen, M. Interaction Analysis and Psychology: A Dialogical Perspective. Integr. psych. behav. 44, 1–22 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-009-9108-9

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