Organisations and Interviewing: from the interactional to the institutional

Georgina Heydon, Martha Komter(2), Celia Roberts(2), Maryns Katrijns(2)

DEPS Kings College London, UK

Themed-panel

In many institutions, interviewing performs a central function in connecting an

organisation's staff with individual members of the public. As such, it is often the only

opportunity for an institution to communicate directly and personally with individuals, and

interviews are frequently used to gather critical information about clients. However, the

structure of these interpersonal interactions is often pre-determined by strict,

institutionally-relevant guidelines. Similarly, it has long been established that such

interviewing has a clear set of identifiable linguistic features, irrespective of the actual

institution to which it belongs (see for instance Drew and Heritage 1992). It would

therefore appear that institutional interviewing is attempting to respond to conflicting

functional requirements: on the one hand, it represents what is often the only personal

interaction that an individual might have with a member of the organisation, but on the

other hand, the purpose of the interaction is to address institutional, not personal, goals.

Where institutions impose structural constraints on the discourse, the resulting

interactional conflicts and confusion may lead to inequitable outcomes for clients of the

institution, especially where those clients are ignorant of the institutional goals being

targeted by the professional interviewer (see for instance Fairclough & Wodak, 1997;

Heydon, 2005; Wodak, 1996). Of particular concern are those institutional interviews

which result in life-altering decisions for the client, such as medical consultations,

employment interviews, immigration assessments and police interviews.

While there is nothing new in these observations, the benefits of a linguistic approach to

institutional communication seem yet to be fully appreciated by industry and government

stakeholders. Compared to the number of psychologists routinely employed in both the

private and public sphere to monitor and improve organisational behaviour, there is a

significant lack of linguists or discourse analysts similarly employed to provide feedback

to institutions about their interviewing processes, not to mention other forms of verbal and

written communication.

All of the contributors to this panel either work with or comment on public institutions and

their discourse practices. The panel will therefore explore approaches to the analysis of

institutional interviewing, (specifically, legal (Heydon, Katrijns, Komter) medical (Sarangi) and

employment (Roberts)) where the micro-level discourse analysis is considered in relation

to macro-level organisational policy. Tools drawn from various forms of discourse

analysis, such as interactional sociolinguistics (Goffman, 1981; Gumperz, 1982) and

Conversation Analysis (Atkinson, 1992; Clayman, 1992; Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson,

1974; Sarangi & Roberts, 1999), will be used to uncover patterns of interaction that relate

to institutional goals and, in some cases, reveal biases and organisational pressures on

the participants as they negotiate requirements of the interview procedure. Whereever

possible, presenters will attempt to interpret their findings in light of institutional policy

and broader social and community impact.

The following questions will guide the discussion

1. How do the various studies being reported explore different approaches to applying

structured micro-level analysis of interview discourse to address macro level institutional

concerns?

2.What is the impact of micro-level discourse on institutional goals across different types

of institutions?

3. a) Can the various methodologies used by researchers in the panel contribute to a

cohesive methodological paradigm for the micro-macro analysis of institutional interviews

such that it is possible to usefully draw comparisons between institutions?, or

3. b) Are the differences between methodological frameworks related to fundamental

differences in the nature of the discourse?

4. As researchers in this field, is it appropriate to consider how to relate the findings of

the the micro-macro analysis to an even higher level of governance or policy

development?

5. What kinds of policy outcomes might emerge from the application of discourse

analysis to corpora of interview texts in any given institutional type?

6. What kinds of contributions are being made to private industry by linguists applying

discourse analysis and interactional sociolinguistics to organisational interviews?

The session will consist of five papers, and a final discussion, which responds to the

questions listed above.

References:

Atkinson, J. M. (1992). Displaying neutrality: formal aspects of court proceedings. In P.

Drew & J. Heritage (Eds.), Talk at Work (pp. 199-211). Cambridge: CUP.

Clayman, S. E. (1992). Footing in the achievement of neutrality. In P. Drew & J. Heritage

(Eds.), Talk at Work (pp. 163-198). Cambridge: CUP.

Drew, P. (1985). Analyzing the use of language in courtroom interaction. In T. A. Van Dijk

(Ed.), Handbook of discourse analysis (Vol. 3, pp. 133-147). London: Academic Press.

Drew, P., & Heritage, J. (1992). Analyzing talk at work. In P. Drew & J. Heritage (Eds.),

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Fairclough, N., & Wodak, R. (1997). Critical Discourse Analysis. In T. A. Van Dijk (Ed.),

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Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

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Heydon, G. (2005). The language of police interviewing : a critical analysis. New York:

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Roberts, C., & Sarangi, S. (1999). Introduction: Negotiating and legitimating roles and

identities. In S. Sarangi & C. Roberts (Eds.), Talk, work and institutional order: Discourse

in medical, mediation and management settings (pp. 227-236). Berlin: Mouton de

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Sacks, H., Schegloff, E., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the

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Sarangi, S., & Roberts, C. (Eds.). (1999). Talk, work and institutional order: Discourse in

medical, mediation and management settings. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Wodak, R. (1996). Disorders of Discourse. London: Addison Wesley Longman