Ragan1981

From emcawiki
Jump to: navigation, search
Ragan1981
BibType ARTICLE
Key Ragan1981
Author(s) Sandra L. Ragan, Robert Hopper
Title Alignment Talk in the Job Interview
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, job intreviews
Publisher
Year 1981
Language
City
Month
Journal Journal of Applied Communication Research
Volume 9
Number 2
Pages 85–103
URL Link
DOI 10.1080/00909888109360293
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

Download BibTex

Abstract

The research reported here describes aligning talk in simulated employment interviews. Alignment talk is used metacommunicatively by speakers to bracket, transform, or qualify other talk, hence it assumes great importance in how communicators define and evaluate situations. Four features of alignment talk appear both in the scholarly literature and in the speech of interview participants in our data: accounts, meta‐talk, formulations, and qualifiers. Each of these features are described in the present report, and their uses in job interviews are explored. It is concluded that these devices serve to accentuate role differences between interviewer and applicant, and to enforce rather stringent norms of how one talks in the job interview. Implications for interviewing practice are discussed.

Notes