Hijacking an Interview? Examining the Mismatch Between Informant's Discourse and the Discourse of Open-Ended Interviewing

• In Event: Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: Hijacking an Interview? Examining the Mismatch Between Informant's Discourse and the Discourse of Open-Ended Interviewing

Abstract

Interviews are ubiquitously employed in research studies in the social sciences. It is a pervasive methodological strategy utilized by researchers, and "estimates suggest that 90 percent of all social science investigations use interview data" (Brigg, 1986, p. 1). However, this methodological strategy, based on the researchers' emic scholarly communicative norms, is indiscriminately employed with respondents from communities whose sociolinguistic norms stand in opposition to those embedded in the interview. This paper brings to the fore the issues arising from the mismatch between informant's discourse rules and the imposed discourse in open-ended interviewing.

Authors

• Ravy S. Lao, California State University - Los Angeles

• Robert E. Land, California State University - Los Angeles