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Positioning the interviewer: Strategic uses of embedded orientation in interview narratives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 February 2011

Gabriella Modan  and
Amy Shuman
Gabriella Modan
Affiliation:
Department of English, The Ohio State University, 421 Denney Hall, 164 West 17th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210-1370, [email protected]
Amy Shuman
Affiliation:
Department of English, The Ohio State University, 421 Denney Hall, 164 West 17th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210-1370, [email protected]
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Abstract

The structure and function of a sociolinguistic interview sets up a context that affords informants the opportunity to achieve their own goals. We examine how an informant manipulates the reception format of the speech event, using embedded orientation to characterize information as alternately given or new, and the interviewer consequently as an insider or outsider. Whereas previous analyses have examined how embedded orientation highlights or sheds light on information in complicating action clauses, we posit that the content of embedded orientation clauses is important in and of itself. Rather than serving as simply background information, embedded orientation can do important ideological work. In the case here, embedded orientation introduces into the narrative traces of a local story—the history of local Fascism, a topic that is rarely discussed in the teller's community. (Embedded orientation, narrative, sociolinguistic interview)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 40 , Special Issue 1: Narratives in interviews, Interviews in narrative studies , February 2011 , pp. 13 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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