Volume 40 Number 1 February 2011 - Blogs

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Volume 40 Number 1 February 2011

ISS~I 00474045

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Language in Society Volume 40

Number I

February 2011

Special Issue: ....arrath es in interviews, Interviews in narrative studies

Guest Editors: Anna De Fina and Sabina Perrino

ARTICLES A\\.\ DE FI\:.\ & S.\81\:A PERRI\Q, Introduction: Interviews VS. 'natural' contexts: A false dilemma GArIRIHL.\ MOD.\\: & Am SHl\lA\, Positioning the interviewer: Strategic uses of embedded orientation in interview narratives A\:\: \ DE FI\:A, Researcher and informant roles in narratiw interactions: Constructions of and foreign-ness Sn\:To\: WORTH.\\!, K\THERJ\:E MORTJ\lER, KATHY LLL, EL\I\:L ALLARD, & KI\IBERLY DA\IFl \VilITF, IntervIews as intcractional data STH SU:\IBR01TK, The research interview as a test: Alignment to boundary, topic, and interactIonal leeway in parental accounts of a child protection procedure MIKE BAY\lI\\!, Stance. positioning. and alignment in narratives of

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Comparing stories told in sociolinguistic interviews and spontaneolls conversation SABI\:A PLRRl\O. Chronotopes of story and storytelling event in interviews

75 91

BOOK REVIEWS ROBLRT R\YLEY & LLc>,s (EDS.). Sociolillgllistic mriatioll: Th"imo rejoins thc dialoguc. By directing the story to Amy, Ennio strategically derutilie" his ;,on as an authority and therefore as a speaker. Ermio llses the oppor­ oflhc sociolinguistic interview to position himself as an authority addrcssing an outsider. the interviewer. His son, positioned as a deratilied listener. is entitled to 1.(IIl!l,tlage ill

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listen hut not to oller an opinion. In this cOllllgunmon. his son his explanation of what happened.

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Ennio's vague orientation casts Amy as an in-group memher (since Il assumes she knows the information needed to make sense of the narrative), hut orientation and comprehension checks cast her as un out-group memher (who os­ does not know or understand). But the POI."lT is not to characterize her as member. Rather. within the narrative framework enahled hy the soeio­ linguistie interview. Ellnio manipulates Amy's group Illelllnership status to information that is key to his version of the onyx-hoom story_ The narrative starts with two anstracts, the second cO-l'Ililstructed by Ellnio and Massimo: "We can say that onyx contrihuted in sOllie way to _" to the economy of Pietrasanta, yes. What's truly art was heing destroyed." This is followed hy an evaluation and an orientation to that evaluation. The first complicating action clause. "Pietrasanta went on." is f()llowed information that contrasts carving onyx with carving marble: "it onyx I was a step hack wards, and in the art and sculpture of Pietrasanta, was all artisanry, our artisanry was a specialty of those artisans." Here, the orientation is explicit. and it is cast syntactically as new information. Howcver. Ermin has n:ason to assume Ihat thc clause "It was a step backwards in the art and sculpture of Pietrasanta" represents given information f()r his audience, since it reiterates the ahstract about onyx ruining Pidmsanta and contributing to the destruction ofwllat is truly art. Similarly. Erlllin has reason to aSSIIIlle that both lis­ teners know that "our artis.1an) n,nTalors in Pietrasanla allributcd Ihe onyx hoom 10 Valican ]['s edict II) eliminate Ihe "lint ,,'ulptures in Calholil' churl'llcs, Vatil':111 11', role is rccounted llIore n:fer:-. to :-.tollL't:lIl1ing

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