Logo image
‘What do you think about...?’: Generating views in an interview
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

‘What do you think about...?’: Generating views in an interview

M. Rapley and C. Antaki
Text - Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Discourse, Vol.18(4), pp.587-608
1998
pdf
generating_views_in_an_interview.pdfDownloadView
Published (Version of Record) Open Access
url
Link to Published Version *Subscription may be requiredView

Abstract

We examine whether a range of devices, previously found to privilege the knowledge and interests of one speaker at the expense of another, turn up in the talk of a researcher conducting an open-ended, 'view-soliciting' interview, where the interviewer is supposed to defer to the interviewee. We show that these devices do appear, and that they can have the effect of privileging the interviewers' views over those of the interviewee. To the general resource of 'cover identities' identified by Sacks, the devices of Maynard's 'perspective-display series' and Bergmann's 'discreetly exploring utterance', we also make a case for adding the device of the interviewer generalizing the respondents' use of particulars, as suggested by Billig (1987) in a different context. We discuss the implications of such talk for the interpretation of open-ended 'views'-eliciting research interviews.

Details

Metrics

872 File views/ downloads
105 Record Views
Logo image