Unveiling the Non‐discursivity of the Lifeworld Experience: An Inquiry into the Taken‐for‐Grantedness of the Spousal Sexual World of Hong Kong Chinese Couples*

Abstract

Although the phenomenological thesis of the lifeworld (Lebenswelt) has posited that the intersubjective experience is largely non‐discursive, sociologists seldom attend to the dimension of non‐discursivity in empirical inquiries. Based on the work of Alfred Schutz, this study first endeavors to explicate that lived experience (Erlebnis) is founded on the non‐discursivity of the lifeworld, that is, the pre‐predicative background expectancies that make possible the everyday life experience. Then, along the Schutzian line of thinking, two novel research techniques—the surface interview and answer‐aire—are designed to delve into the taken‐for‐grantedness of the lifeworld, using the spousal sexual world as a case in point. This study pioneers a way that the structures of the horizon that lie within the unsaid region of the lifeworld become sociologically and scientifically examinable.