The Shaping Effects of the Conversational Interview

Abstract

The conversational research interview constitutes a complex and fraught context for personal accounts, and the methodological literature of the past few decades has acknowledged this. Theoretical discussions about representation, ethics, and power in interviews have been extended in empirical studies of actual interaction. Particularly useful for observing subtleties of talk between interviewer and interviewee are tools drawn from conversation analysis and other, overlapping forms of linguistic analysis. This article seeks to add to existing studies of interview interaction by proposing a strategy for examining the specifically generic features of interviewing. Genre, as framed by rhetorical theory, encompasses both form and social situation, allowing interviews to be framed as local enactments of historically regularized but flexible discursive forms. By focusing on interlocutors’ expectations around and linguistic action within the conventions of talk, genre offers a valuable additional wedge into an oft-used means for collecting narrative research data.

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