This article is about the British Professor of Discourse Analysis. For the Australian computer programmer, see Jonathan Potter (computer programmer).

Jonathan Potter is a Scottish psychologist. He is currently Professor of Discourse Analysis at Loughborough University and one of the originators of discursive psychology. He is co-author of the influential book Discourse and Social Psychology which is one of the foundational texts of discursive psychology. It offered new ways of conceptualizing fundamental social psychological notions such as attitudes and categories and has been cited more than a thousand times in more than a hundred different journals. More recently his Representing Reality provided an overview, extension and critique of social constructionism in social sciences. In discursive psychology he and Derek Edwards built a specific style of work that is now commonplace in journals across the social sciences as well as indirectly fostering a swathe of non-experimental approaches to social psychology.

Bibliography

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• Potter, J. and Wetherell, M. (1987). Discourse and Social Psychology: Beyond Attitudes and Behaviour. London: Sage. ISBN 0-8039-8411-1
• Potter, J. (1996). Representing Reality: Discourse, Rhetoric and Social Construction. London; Sage. ISBN 0-8039-8056-6

Sociolinguists | Scottish psychologists | Living people | Loughborough University

Jonathan Potter