Reviews 501

Visscher, P. (2004) ‘Sibling Care in a Quechua Village: Caretaking Modes and Parental
Views’, unpublished qualifying paper, Harvard University.

Harriet R. TENENBAUM
Psychology Department, Kingston University, Penrhyn Road, Kingston-Upon-
Thames, KT1 2EE, UK.

Darryl B. HILL
Department of Psychology, College of Staten Island, City University of New
York, Staten Island, New York, 10314, USA.

Susan A. Speer: Gender Talk: Feminism, Discourse and Conversation

Analysis. London: Routledge, 2005, 224pp. £15.95, ISBN 0–415–24622-x
(pbk); £45, ISBN 0–415–24043–1 (hbk).
DOI: 10.1177/0959353506068796

Where and when does gender appear in discourse? Is gender always, as Speer puts it,
‘bubbling under the surface of interactions’ (p. 2) and, if so, how can we tell? In this
book, Susan Speer argues that gender, power and oppression are accomplishments of
mundane interactions, and she makes a clear and authoritative case for the use of con-
versation analysis (CA) and the ‘closely related perspective of discursive psychology
(DP)’ (p. 3) to explicate how these things are brought off in talk-in-interaction.
CA was developed by Harvey Sacks in the 1960s and is ‘primarily concerned to
describe the methods speakers use to coordinate their talk to produce orderly and
meaningful conversational actions’ (p. 16). The origins of DP are less clear, but Speer
points to the significance of Jonathan Potter and Margaret Wetherell’s (1987) critique
of the cognitivist approaches that dominated British social psychology in the 1980s.
Both CA and DP have (contested) roots in ethnomethodology and even a cursory
glance at relevant literature reveals the significance of talk-in-interaction as data for
research in both approaches. Speer’s assertion that CA and DP can and should be
usefully combined is convincing (for a fuller discussion of this point, see Wooffitt,
2005, and, for a slightly different view, see Kitzinger, 2006). There are some differ-
ences, though, not least of which is the perceived radical potential of each.
Potter and Wetherell’s critique of social psychology was developed in the context
of racist discourse, thereby suggesting its critical potential from the start. By contrast,
the perception of CA as a non-political and non-critical examination of turn-taking
that is based on ‘participatory rhetoric’ (Billig, 1999: 551) does not make it an obvi-
ous candidate for use in radical research. Indeed, the debate sparked by conversation
analyst Emanuel Schegloff’s (1997) indictment of the failure to bracket off politics
from analysis was interpreted by some critics as demonstrating that CA is of ‘little
practical relevance to feminism’ (p. 19). What then is the basis of Speer’s argument
for a ‘strongly aligned CA discursive approach’ (p. 4) to feminist research?
First, Speer locates CA and DP together in a mapping of the terrain of discourse
analysis in which she includes three other broad perspectives: sexist language;
interactional sociolinguistics and the ethnography of communication; and critical dis-

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502 Feminism & Psychology 16(4)

cursive approaches. Speer provides a helpful overview of each perspective before

developing them further through a more focused examination of significant contribu-
tions from key players such as Butler, Garfinkel, Schegloff and Tannen.
Second, Speer constructs an organizing framework in order to structure her critique
of perspectives on gender and discourse. What she calls an ‘adequate feminist dis-
cursive approach’ (p. 20) is characterized by five features:
I. A constructionist approach
II. Discourse of mind and world as topic, not resource
III. Language as a form of social action
IV. Analysts’ claims grounded in participants’ practices
V. A relativist approach.
Speer notes that not all these features map straightforwardly on to existing feminist or
even to some CA/DP work. For example, constructionist and relativist positions are
treated cautiously by some feminists because they are viewed as undermining the
potential for defining (sexist and heterosexist) actions and events as inherently
unacceptable. Speer delays discussion of this and other thorny issues until the final
chapter in a move that allows her to develop her own position more clearly without
getting entangled in heavy theoretical debates. I will follow her example and take up
issues of constructionism and relativism at the end of the review.
Having defined her theoretical framework, Speer uses it to critique each of the
perspectives she describes. For example, sex difference perspectives, while influen-
tial, would not amount to an adequate feminist discursive approach in Speer’s terms
(see Chapter 2). This is largely because they seek to expose how men and women
speak in essentialist terms as men and women rather than exploring how speakers are
constructed as being gendered through discourse. The problem with this is that it
reifies gender differences, restricting the possibility for challenge and disruption. Sex
difference approaches also ‘fail’ Speer’s other criteria because she argues they are
cognitivist, decontextualized, theory-driven and realist.
Poststructuralist approaches (see Chapter 3) come closer to an adequate feminist dis-
cursive position. For example, Judith Butler’s theory is credited with ‘placing con-
structionist ideas about gender firmly on the feminist agenda’ (p. 75, emphasis in
original). Butler’s account is also taken to be ‘anti-foundational in its focus’ (p. 86) and
therefore relativist rather than realist. However, Speer notes that Butler writes about
discourse in an abstract way, making no attempt to identify the concrete practices
through which gendering is made to appear natural. For Speer, it is crucial that feminists
demonstrate where and how gender is ‘made real’ through detailed examination of what
actually happens when people talk to each other. This is the core business of CA.
So, to return to the question I asked earlier at the end of the third paragraph, the
basis of Speer’s argument for the application of CA and DP to feminist research is
because together they (arguably) meet all five of her criteria (see Chapter 4). In keep-
ing with her position as an analyst, Speer substantiates her case using transcripts of
data. Perhaps the most significant of these is taken from Schegloff’s (1997) analysis
of a telephone conversation between divorced parents as they seek to clarify their
son’s travel arrangements. These data include two places where the male speaker
interrupts the female speaker, which could be taken as evidence of male domination

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Reviews 503

of the conversation. Using the principles of CA, Schegloff demonstrates that in fact
gender is not relevant to what is going on in this conversation at these points of inter-
ruption. However, as Schegloff also clearly asserts, this does not mean that gender is
never relevant to conversations, nor that power asymmetries should be precluded
from analysis. Rather, it is incumbent on researchers to explicate where and how
political action gets done between people. If gender, power and oppression are viewed
as accomplishments that are constituted in talk-in-interaction, then CA and DP offer
powerful analytic frameworks for feminist research. This is really what Speer spends
the rest of the book demonstrating. The extent to which she is successful depends in
part on your position in the so-called Schegloff–Wetherell–Billig debate and your
views on what constitutes feminism.
The Schegloff–Wetherell–Billig debate appeared in the late 1990s in the pages of
Discourse and Society, and the themes developed therein are core to Speer’s text.
Indeed Speer devotes a whole chapter (see Chapter 5) to the first part of this debate:
Schegloff (1997) and Wetherell (1998). Briefly stated, Wetherell is dismissive of
what she sees as an over-reliance on talk in CA, and she urges researchers to pay
attention to the extra-discursive in order to formulate effective political responses.
Speer notes that feminists have generally heeded Wetherell, but she argues that they
have done so at the expense of ‘evidencing and validating claims about norms and
social structures on the page’ (p. 149). For Speer, there is much to be gained by focus-
ing precisely on talk because the so-called extra-discursive (e.g. ideology, gender
norms and macro-contexts) are actually oriented to by participants in dialogue. It is
because such structures are ‘analytically tractable’ (p. 149) that CA offers such a
powerful tool for feminist research. Again, Speer demonstrates her argument through
analytic examples, this time from her own work exploring masculinity, which she
usefully contrasts with the more abstract analysis offered by Wetherell and Edley
(1999). For me, Speer’s analysis is more compelling (and ethical?) than Wetherell and
Edley’s because of her sensitivity to participants’ own orientations rather than (arro-
gantly?) imposing a level of meaning from above and outside their awareness.
Admittedly, I locate myself closer to Schegloff than Wetherell in their debate, so per-
haps I did not need to be convinced. However, the beauty of Speer’s approach is that
readers can judge for themselves what she is doing with the data. In this sense, CA is
a process of discovery that lays itself open to claims of validity – if something (e.g.
masculinity) exists for the participants, then the form of its existence should be
demonstrable in the data.
I acknowledge the realist overtones of the last statement, which as a construction-
ist leaves me slightly uncomfortable. This seems like an appropriate point to return to
the thorny issues of constructionism and relativism raised earlier. It appears to me that
Speer had two tasks to undertake when including constructionism and relativism in
her theoretical matrix. First, she needed to show that CA and DP are constructionist
and relativist in orientation and, second, she needed to persuade feminist critics these
theoretical constructs have a place in any ‘adequate feminist’ account. In the first of
these tasks, Speer notes that while DP has always tended to embrace constructionism
and relativism, there is more ambivalence from those working in CA. However, Speer
insists that CA is compatible with constructionism because it treats ‘identities as
things that are interactionally invoked, oriented to be reproduced and resisted by par-

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504 Feminism & Psychology 16(4)

ticipants in talk’ (p. 91), and because it fundamentally rejects an ‘essentialist variables
and effects model of language’ (p. 90). Further, both CA and DP can be considered
relativist because they treat ‘reality’ as an accomplishment of discourse, thus side-
stepping issues of what is true and what is false. Reality is whatever is made real
between people as they speak to one another. As a constructionist, this is an onto-
logical move that I can accept, and it makes CA’s positivist overtones less paradoxi-
cal (and more comfortable).
If CA and DP are constructionist and relativist, then does this make them com-
patible with feminism? Speer is clear that it does: ‘Relativism is a morally and
politically strong position for feminists to take’ (p. 190), because ‘questioning and
scepticism need not lead us into a political black hole . . . [but rather] keeps argument
alive’ (p. 190). Questioning the truth claims of knowledge does not deny the possi-
bility of taking a stand. Instead, it leads to a reflexive position in which we acknow-
ledge that our judgements are located in particular contexts, tied to specific historical
moments and therefore open to disruption. Speer urges academics to embrace rela-
tivism as method to undermine intellectual and ideological hegemony of all kinds.
There is a weakness, however, which is, as Speer puts it, that ‘the radical potential of
relativism (for feminism) has tended to be asserted rather than demonstrated’ (p. 190).
Herein lies Speer’s challenge to feminist researchers: to go out and collect examples
of ‘members’ reality constructing work’ (p. 190) so that we have data to underpin the
political and theoretical debates.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is a concise and authoritative account of the
potential for feminist discursive research that draws on CA and DP. Undergraduate
students of gender and discourse will benefit from the clarity of the arguments and
analytic examples. The book inspires, and even demands action from researchers; in
Speer’s words: ‘I want to get on with the business of attempting to do CA, to demon-
strate analytically what CA can offer feminism. I urge other feminists to do the same’
(p. 198, emphasis in the original).

REFERENCES

Billig, M. (1999) ‘Whose Terms? Whose Ordinariness? Rhetoric and Ideology in

Conversation Analysis’, Discourse and Society 10: 543–58.
Kitzinger, C. (2006) ‘After post-cognitivism’, Discourse Studies 8: 67–83.
Potter, J. and Wetherell, M. (1987) Discourse and Social Psychology: Beyond Attitudes
and Behaviour. London: Sage.
Schegloff, E. (1997) ‘Whose Text? Whose Context?’ Discourse and Society 8, 165–87.
Wetherell. M. (1998) ‘Positioning and Interpretive Repertoires: Conversation Analysis
and Post-structuralism in Dialogue’, Discourse and Society 9: 387–412.
Wetherell, M. and Edley, N. (1999) ‘Negotiating Hegemonic Masculinity: Imaginary
Positions and Psycho-discursive Practices’, Feminism and Psychology 9: 335–56.
Wooffitt, R. (2005) Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis: A Comparative and
Critical Introduction. London: Sage.

Clare STOCKILL
St Martin’s College, Fusehill Street, Carlisle, CA1 2HH, UK

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