LINGUIST List 18.1119
Thu Apr 12 2007
Diss: Applied Ling: Lipovsky: 'Negotiating Solidarity: A social-lin...'
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Directory
1. Caroline
Lipovsky,
Negotiating Solidarity: A social-linguistic approach to job interviews
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Message 1: Negotiating Solidarity: A social-linguistic approach to job interviews
Date: 12-Apr-2007
From: Caroline Lipovsky <caroline.lipovskyarts.usyd.edu.au>
Subject: Negotiating Solidarity: A social-linguistic approach to job interviews
Institution: University of Sydney
Program: Department of Linguistics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2005
Author: Caroline Lipovsky
Dissertation Title: Negotiating Solidarity: A social-linguistic approach to job interviews
Linguistic Field(s):
Applied Linguistics
Dissertation Director:
Jim Martin
Jane Simpson
Dissertation Abstract:
In any kind of encounter, you are often judged, amongst other things, byyour behaviour. This is why people often engage in impression management toinfluence their audience in a desirable way. Controlling one'sinterlocutor's impressions is particularly important if there is much atstake, or if something can be lost or gained from a given interaction, so agood way to investigate impression management is to look at job interviews.This study sets to find out how candidates and interviewers, in the courseof a job interview, manage the impression they make on one another.
This study is based on the analysis of video-recordings and transcriptionsof four authentic interviews in either French or French and English (83minutes), five role-played interviews in French (74 minutes), and follow-upinterviews with candidates and interviewers for both authentic androle-played interviews (23 hours and 34 minutes). All but two of thecandidates are native speakers of English, whereas the interviewers arenative speakers of French or English; however there were few interculturalmisunderstandings in the interviews in French with the non-native speakers.
The analysis uses Systemic Functional Linguistics to identify key elementsof the participants' speech, and the theory of politeness to interpret themotivations for their choices. The findings are supported by thecandidates' and interviewers' post-interview comments. The study focuses onthree areas: the candidates' negotiation of their expertise, theinterviewers' and candidates' negotiation of a common identity, and theirnegotiation of rapport.
The analysis shows that the candidates' enactment of their expertise (howthey talk about it) is more important for the impression they make on theirinterviewers than their actual skills and professional experience.Successful candidates volunteer relevant, sufficient and preciseinformation through numerous full clauses, material processes that describewhat they do/did at work, circumstantial adjuncts that express where, when,how, etc, they perform/ed tasks at work, and show in-group knowledgethrough technical language.
Then, the interviewers and candidates may highlight co-membership throughtheir use of the semantic resources of Involvement (e.g. familiar terms ofaddress and informal or specialised language) or humorous utterances andjoking. They may also try to establish co-membership by discussing sharedattributes of their identity, through small talk about commonacquaintances, or self-disclosure of information pertaining to theirnon-professional life.
An Appraisal analysis highlighted that candidates also share feelings andbeliefs with their interviewers in order to show they belong. For instance,they make positive judgements on their capability to perform in their jobto negotiate their professional co-membership. They also display positivefeelings, such as enthusiasm and passion for their job to negotiateempathy, and a positive attitude to emphasise they are the kind ofindividuals people want to work with. On the other hand, interviewers sharepositive feelings and appreciations about the candidates' performance inthe interview to build rapport and appear friendly as future colleagues.
Thus, this study illustrates how the interviewers' and candidates'lexico-grammatical and semantic choices play a role in their impressions ofone another and how they attempt to bond with each other.
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