Bakhtin’s chronotope, connotations, and discursive psychology: towards a richer interpretation of experience

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn this article, we draw on the Bakhtinian concept of chronotope to make the theoretical argument that the turn to embodiment can be supplemented through a consideration of connotation in discursive psychology. We use Billig’s conception of linguistic repression as a test case as to how connotation can supplement discursive analysis, but we use our own interview material to do so. From establishing the case that connotation, understood through the lens of chronotope, is potentially of vital interest to discursive psychology, we move to drawing out three implications for doing qualitative research differently. First, we suggest researchers need to feel the chronotope of the interview to manage its connotations in vivo. Second, we draw attention to the role of the absent other in everyday speech and how this absent other can be analysed differently to a typical discourse analysis—as layering connotations into speech. Finally, we draw attention to the hermeneutic attitude of earnest irony when doing research as a further means of generating and managing connotations.