求职面试案例的语用研究

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3.0 赵德峰 2024-11-19 4 4 498.21KB 67 页 15积分

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Chapter 1 Introduction

§1.1 Introduction to job interview

§1.1.1 Job interview as a conversation

Conversation is different from a sentence in that “Conversation is not a structural

product in the same way that a sentence is―it is rather the outcome of the interaction of

two or more independent, goal-directed individuals, with often divergent

interests”(Levinson, Pragmatics, 294). Moreover the term conversation usually includes

both ordinary conversation and institutional conversation, which also bear significant

differences as follows: An ordinary conversation is “a kind of talk in which two or more

participants freely alternate in speaking, which generally occurs outside specific

institutional settings like religious services, law courts, classrooms and the

like”(Levinson, Pragmatics, 284). In contrast, “the institutionality of an interaction is

not determined by its setting. Rather, interaction is institutional insofar as participants’

institutional or professional identities are somehow made relevant to the work activities

in which they are engaged” (Drew and Heritage, Introduction, 3), like doctor-patient

interaction or court-room examination, police-witness interrogation, news interview, etc.

Both ordinary conversation and institutional conversation have been the primary

concern of conversational analysts for a long time.

As a kind of conversation, typically an interview refers to “ a dynamic interaction

between two parties, the interviewer and the interviewee, who meet to fulfill a

predetermined purpose of one or both parties, using questions and answers as the means

of achieving the purpose”(Klopf and Cambra 61).

An interview takes a variety of forms, like news interview, doctor-patient interview,

judge-offender interview, etc, among which job interview probably is the most

widespread form, and nowadays most enterprises have actually relied on it as a

necessary procedure of selecting the most appropriate candidates.

In fact the popularity of job interviews can be accounted for by the following

factors. Firstly, in a job interview, it is usually the case that there are two or more

candidates competing for the same job, so the face-to-face verbal encounter between the

interviewer and the interviewee will be inevitable and whether or not the interviewee

can get the job will chiefly depend on his or her performance. Secondly, the job

interview, according to Button (1992), is overwhelmingly composed of talk organized

A Case Study of Job Interviews from Pragmatic Approach

into a series

of questions and answers, and the answers of the interviewee are supposed to show his

or her strengths and weaknesses, as the interview orthodoxy says that “the questions in

the interview can reveal the personal characteristics, qualities, and deficiencies of a

candidate. It may appear that all the candidate has as resources to answer the questions

are the questions themselves, and his own ‘wit.’ If so, then an answer, since it is open to

assessment, provides the interviewer with a resource to gain access to that ‘wit.’ So, as

now a purely objective matter, the interviewers construct a setting where a

characterization of the candidate as not answering the question is, legitimately, also a

characterization of the candidate’s deficiencies”(Button 227).

Considering the above concepts concerning job interview conversation, we can see

that the interaction of job interview is by no means ordinary or casual conversation,

rather it is formal and institutional in a sense, and accordingly it is supposed to have a

unique conversational structure, which is also one important concern of this paper. Lots

of studies have been made on institutional conversation in a sociolinguistic dimension

by means of CA approach. So it will be both necessary and worthwhile to draw on CA

for its analysis in order to fully comprehend the organization of conversation in a job

interview.

§1.1.2 Job interview as an activity type

As is stated above, a job interview can be taken as kind of institutional

conversation, however, some linguists like Levinson would rather take a job interview

as an ‘activity type’, which is complementary to the former in that it aims to

characterize the job interview not only as a conversation but a dynamic interaction in

nature.

The term of ‘activity type’ is proposed in contrast with the notion of ‘speech

events’. In fact ‘speech events’ was first proposed by Hymes (1962) in his seminal

article “The ethnography of speaking”. By the notion of “speech events” he intends to

refer to “rather formal, often highly ritualized events, such as weddings, funerals,

welcoming ceremonies”, while “such less formal, rigid or predictable events, such as ‘a

university admissions interview’, ‘a visit to the doctor’s’, ‘a dressing down by the

headmaster’” and casual conversations can not be “well-handled” with the term ‘speech

events’ (Thomas 189). Similarly the job interview is by no means something ‘highly

ritualized’ or predictable. Rather its characteristics seem to be better captured by the

Chapter 1 Introduction

term ‘activity type’, which is defined as (Levinson, Activity Types, 69):

… a fuzzy category whose focal members are goal-defined, socially

constituted, bounded, events with constraints on participants, setting, and so

on, but above all on the kinds of allowable contributions. Paradigm examples

would be teaching, a job interview, a jural interrogation, a football game, a

task in a workshop, a dinner party and so on.

One important difference between Levinson’s ‘activity type’ and Hymes’s

concept of ‘speech events’ is that “they reflect the different approaches of the

sociolinguist and the pragmaticist to the description of linguistic interaction.” , “to put it

simply, Hymes sees context as constraining the way the individual speaks; Levinson

sees the individual’s use of language as shaping the ‘event’. The sociolinguist tries to

show how features of context systematically constrain language use. The pragmaticist

tries to show how speakers use language in order to change the situation they find

themselves in” (Thomas, Interaction, 189).

When it comes to job interview, undeniably ‘activity type’ can do a better job in

facilitating the comprehension of its nature. To characterize the job interview as an

‘activity type’, according to J. Thomas, one should look into its pragmatic aspects so as

to give it a well-round description. In other words it is necessary to find out whether and

to what degree Gricean maxims and politeness comes to be observed or disobeyed in

the interaction of job interview (Thomas, Interaction, 191).

§1.2 The significance of the paper

As we all know that it is not unusual for most people, especially college graduates

to take one or several job interviews in his or her life. So far lots of studies on job

interviews have been conducted in the business world and as a result numerous etiquette

books have been published in this regard. However, these books are chiefly concerned

with some guides, advices or strategies on how to do successful job interviews in terms

of interpersonal communication, which has obviously downplayed the role of linguistic

analysis. As a matter of fact the study on job interview can never be thorough and

complete without an adequate treatment of linguistic analysis in that language can play

a vital role in job interview, and it is often the case that “candidates who can

linguistically match a standard variety and interact within the discourse conventions are

normally at an advantage.” (Akinnaso and Ajirotutu 143). Therefore analyzing the job

interview from a linguistic perspective will shed new light on the interaction of job

A Case Study of Job Interviews from Pragmatic Approach

interview and facilitate our comprehension of it, including the interview techniques or

skills mentioned in numerous guidebooks.

Moreover the present research may be of practical help to the interviewer and the

interviewee in that it aims to make clear what characterizes a typical conversation of job

interview. By finding out the conventions and norms underlying the interaction of job

interview, the interviewer and the interviewee may well adjust their verbal conduct and

follow the right pragmatic strategies like cooperative principle and politeness strategy

so as to achieve a successful outcome. In this sense, the current research is also an

attempt for pragmatic studies and CA in terms of the conversation of job interview,

which is rarely touched on by previous researchers.

Since the linguistic study on the conversation of job interview is so meaningful,

the current research attempts to fulfill the following objectives. Firstly by taking job

interview as an institutional conversation and an activity type, its primary aim is to give

a systematic characterization to the interaction of job interview in a linguistic light, a

pragmatic perspective in particular. More specifically, on the one hand, the general

conversational features like turn-taking and discourse patterns ought to be found out,

this is the first step in carrying out pragmatic analysis. On the other hand, the pragmatic

principles, cooperative principle and politeness theory in particular will be adopted in

examining the cases of job interview. Hopefully pragmatic conventions and effective

pragmatic strategies can be discovered so that the keys to successful job interview are

revealed.

§1.3 Methodology

To do a valid research, according to Sacks, the conversational analyst must usually

first record the data on-the-spot by audio or visual means, then transcribe them into

texts carefully with a transcription system that can capture even some insignificant

features like hesitation, overlap, gap, slips, etc (Liu 9).

The present research is chiefly consistent with the above practice of conversation

analysis in terms of methodology, for all the data in the paper have been either collected

in real settings of job interview with MP3 by the author or quoted from some foreign

CA researchers with a recognized fame in investigation of the job-interview

conversation. The job interviews recorded by the author are all carried out in English in

foreign companies based in China with both the interviewer and the interviewee being

all Chinese and bilingual, and the job applicants are college graduates who have learned

Chapter 1 Introduction

English as a foreign language for at least ten years and can speak English rather fluently,

while the interviewer has a better command of oral English. So both parties have no

difficulty communicating in English. As for the data of job interview cited from

previous researches, the job interview is carried out in foreign settings and both parties

in general are native English speakers.

The job interviews may involve a company’s confidential information, so it is

extremely hard to record lots of data in real settings. Therefore for the present research,

only five complete job interviews are recorded successfully. Moreover, given the above

consideration, only two of them are put into scripts that are attached in Appendix II. The

samples used in this paper are mainly from theses two sample interviews. But this does

not mean only these two interviews are analyzed in the present paper, in fact, all the

data collected have been considered before carrying out the analysis. Furthermore the

samples of other researchers also aid the present research to a great extent. In sum all

the data collected, whatever the sources, are authentic in the sense that they are

collected in the real and natural work settings by means of tape recordings. But the

method of tape-recording may fail to capture the nonverbal features of the conversation.

Fortunately this problem does not affect the validity of the present research in that only

the verbal aspect of job interview interaction is dealt with in the current research.

§1.4 The outline of the paper

This chapter serves as an introduction to the paper; the next chapter is concerned

with the literature review as well as analytical framework for the present research. This

part will briefly review the past contributions to studies of job interview in terms of CA

and some other linguistic theories. Then the author proceeds to explain J. Thomas’s

pragmatic model of describing activity type, based on which an adequate framework for

the present research will be developed. The following three chapters constitute the

practical analysis, Chapter three provides an analysis of the conversational features of

job interview by means of CA strategy; Chapter four explores the manifestation of

Grice’s cooperative principle in the interaction of job interview, Chapter five examines

the conversation of job interview in terms of politeness theory, asymmetrical social

relationship between two parties as well as pragmatic parameters like power involved in

the interaction. The last chapter serves as the conclusion of the paper.

A Case Study of Job Interviews from Pragmatic Approach

Chapter 2 Literature Review and Analytical Framework

§2.1 Introduction to Conversation Analysis

Originating from a branch of Ethnomethodology that is a branch of sociological

study, Conversation Analysis has been seriously pioneered by such sociologists as H.

Sacks, E. Schegloff, and G. Jefferson around 1970s. As a rigorously empirical approach,

“CA avoids premature theory construction”; it mainly takes an inductive methodology;

findings are based on many records of naturally occurring conversations by means of

tape-recordings and transcripts; its aim is “to discover the systematic properties of the

sequential organization of talk, and the ways in which utterances are designed to

manage such sequences” (Levinson, Pragmatics, 287). But recently the focus of CA is

gradually shifting from ordinary conversation to institutional conversation.

Conversation Analysis (CA) is “a technique developed relatively recently for

examining and exploring spoken language”. Work in the area has principally “focused

on spontaneous talk which takes place in naturally occurring social situation, and also

on talk in various ‘institutional’ settings, such as court-rooms, doctors’ surgeries and

news interviews, etc, where the interaction is more agenda-driven”(Reay 54).

According to Reay, CA can usually enable us to find out some common observable

rules and procedures by which participants organize and manage their conversation

behavior as well as the structure of conversation. Specifically the questions that CA

addresses can include such issues as turn-taking norms, turn holding, adjacency pairs,

topic management and so on.

By addressing these issues and finding out conversational features in a certain

context, “clearly, CA is useful for investigating how people alter their language behavior

according to who they are talking to and in what kind of setting” (Reay 55). In this

sense, one can see a certain overlapping of concerns between CA and pragmatics, so it

is necessary to draw upon CA when analyzing conversation in a pragmatic light. In

addition, understanding the conversational features will be a stepping-stone for further

analysis; therefore the technique of CA can be seen as pragmatically significant. This

can probably account for why J. Thomas emphasizes the vital role of CA in

characterizing job interview as an activity type from pragmatic perspective.

§2.2 Pragmatic approach to Conversation Analysis

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Chapter1Introduction1Chapter1Introduction§1.1Introductiontojobinterview§1.1.1JobinterviewasaconversationConversationisdifferentfromasentenceinthat“Conversationisnotastructuralproductinthesamewaythatasentenceis―itisrathertheoutcomeoftheinteractionoftwoormoreindependent,goal-directedindividuals,withof...

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