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| Title: | Researcher and informant roles in narrative interactions: Constructions of belonging and foreign-ness |
| Author: | Anna De Fina |
| Email: | click here to access email |
| Institution: | Georgetown University |
| Linguistic Field: | Discourse Analysis; Sociolinguistics |
| Abstract: | In this article I focus on the influence of researcher/informant roles on the types of narratives that are produced and on the ways in which storytelling interactions are managed in research contexts. In particular, I show that storytelling activities and story types both reflect and shape relationships among participants based, among other factors, on their local management of situational and portable identities. I argue that one important methodological consequence of the analysis is the recognition of the fact that all data produced in interaction (including interviews) are irreducibly context-bound and that therefore an analytical separation between observer and observed is impossible. I also discuss how a treatment of the research event and of storytelling in it as a real interactional encounter can shed light on issues related to the insider-outsider status of the researcher and the Observer's Paradox (Labov 1972b). (Narrative, interviews, interactional roles, immigrants, identities). |
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This article appears in Language in Society Vol. 40, Issue 1, which you can read on Cambridge's site or on LINGUIST . |
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