The production of 'defectiveness' as a linguistic resource in broadcast evangelical discourse: A discursive psychology approach

This article explores the social construction of the notion of defectiveness in broadcast evangelical discourse. The data come from the God TV (USA) and the flagship TV channel God Channel (UK). The analysis focuses on the action-orientated and rhetorical business (Potter, 1996) accomplished by employing descriptions and displays of defectiveness. Specifically, this article investigates how notions of a general 'human' and direct 'personal' defectiveness are negotiated, and for what reasons, in this particular Christian talk. The focus here is on how and what actions people perform with their talk in these environments, when doing interactional work and presenting specific versions of arguments, stories etc. (Edwards, 2005).