Positioning selves, doing relational work and constructing identities in interview talk
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Elizabeth R. Miller
Abstract
This article draws on positioning theory and uses Bamberg’s (2005) three-level analytic approach to analyze how identity construction and relational work implicate the other and are co-constitutive processes in local interactions. To that end, it examines a sequence of excerpts taken from an interview involving the author and a Vietnamese woman and analyzes the co-constructed positioning of self and other that developed over the course of the interview conversation. The article focuses on how (non)delicate topics are introduced, responded to, modified and developed as the interviewee reports on past experience and adopts evaluative stances toward topics initiated by the interviewer. The study further highlights how normative ideologies are indexed and reconstituted in such talk, and points to their role in making particular identities relevant and in mobilizing relational work in local interactions.
©2013 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Masthead
- Masthead
- Articles
- Introduction: Face, identity and im/politeness. Looking backward, moving forward: From Goffman to practice theory
- Identity work and face work across linguistic and cultural boundaries
- Small stories and identities analysis as a framework for the study of im/politeness-in-interaction
- Positioning selves, doing relational work and constructing identities in interview talk
- Identity and impoliteness: The expert in the talent show Idol
- Epilogue: Facing identity
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Masthead
- Masthead
- Articles
- Introduction: Face, identity and im/politeness. Looking backward, moving forward: From Goffman to practice theory
- Identity work and face work across linguistic and cultural boundaries
- Small stories and identities analysis as a framework for the study of im/politeness-in-interaction
- Positioning selves, doing relational work and constructing identities in interview talk
- Identity and impoliteness: The expert in the talent show Idol
- Epilogue: Facing identity
