British Journal of Developmental Psychology (2004), 22, 000–000 2004 The British Psychological Society Commentary

We welcome this opportunity to discuss the application of discourse analytical approaches to the concerns of the British Journal of Developmental Psychology and its readership. Our remarks are directed (by editorial invitation) at one specific article (Korobov & Bamberg, 2004), but are designed to have a more general relevance to the relationships between data and analysis in discursive psychology (DP). It is important at this point, before critically engaging with the article, to emphasize that we endorse and encourage the kind of work that it represents. We aim to use this discussion as a basis for general remarks on how to apply DP to everyday language and social interaction, including interactions with children and adolescents, and to raise some problems with the use of interview and focus group materials. We examine in turn: (1) the article’s overall framework of theory and method, and (2) the nature of the data (focus group discussions) and its analysis in terms of ‘maturity’. Discursive developmental psychology, to the extent that such an enterprise has already begun, is not the study of how child discourse develops. It might overlap with that, but it has a much wider remit. Any study of mental life, or of the psychologica