FULLTEXT01

depending on time and context will be seen as controversial, while others will
be taken for granted. This means that there also exists an inseparable
relationship between the way of arguing, and what can be perceived as
ideological implications (Billig, 2005, 2009: Billig, Condor, Edwards, Gane,
Middleton, & Radley, 1988). The analytical tools used in the study are
interpretative repertoires and ideological dilemmas.
The analytical concepts of interpretative repertoires and ideological dilemmas
partially intertwine, because both can be understood as descriptions of
rhetorical resources and discursive strategies, which are more or less available at
a particular historical moment. To that extent, the concept of interpretative
repertoires represents some of the material in the „common sense‟, of which a
discursive practice is constituted. The concept of ideological dilemmas implies
that the method of combining different interpretative repertoires around the
same social phenomenon, i.e. the design of the argumentation, can be regarded
as a rhetorical construction, conditional on the specific common sense of one
discursive practice (Edley, 2001). That means that also particular ways of saying
or writing something at a certain moment will seem more natural than other
ways.
The analysis aims to detect and to identify the interpretative repertoires that are
used, the ideological dilemmas that are present, as well as determine how they
are separated from one another, as well as how they intertwine (Edley, 2001).
One should as a part of analysis also note what is not being challenged or
questioned, or understood as obvious and normalized, while this is also
considered to be a part of the discursive practice. Also paradoxes, tensions and
significant shifts in the arguments and what can thereby gain credibility, should
be considered in the analysis, which is to include ideological implications of the
discursive practice in the analysis. Empirical studies have namely shown that
such discrimination may well be achieved by an argument which not „purports
to be‟ discriminatory (Billig, 2005; Wetherell & Potter, 1992). Although, I do
not pay attention to „subject positions‟ very explicitly in the study, this must be
regarded as an inevitable aspect of both interpretation repertoires and
ideological dilemmas, because subject positions are seen as a part of every
discursive structure.
Within a broad sense postmodernly-oriented discourse analytic field, where I
believe my study can be placed, truth and reality are considered as something
relative and something dependent on a currently existing discourse (Wetherell,
2005). Therefore a relativistic approach may also have implications on the
173