Interview Questions & Processes

The creation of discourse that this blog aims to achieve was primarily cultivated by the process of asking intentional questions. Asking questions may be one of the most natural human processes that exist; In our day-to-day lives, the questions we ask to represent our subliminal interests and the outcomes we aim to achieve. The questions I chose to shape these interviews have the objective of revealing these subliminal interests through authentic responses.  

I would like to go through and explain my rationale behind each interview question and how they aimed to generate authentic responses that thoroughly created lingual frames. I referred to 3 features of course content to create these questions. 

The first feature is the basic definition of 'frames' as defined by Alexander Dent as "A structure of expectations for the production and reception of discourse"(Week 3, class 2). 

The second feature I focused on is the Dell Hymes Acronym, "SPEAKING," which stands for setting, participants, ends, acts, key, instrumentalities, norms, and genres. This acronym was suggested by Professor Dent as a good starting point to develop a frame, and thus I referred to it when creating interview questions.  

The last feature I focused on, specifically in my last interview question is the term "rich points," which is discussed by Michael Agar as moments in language that diverge from frames or the expectations for that discourse (Agar, Language Shock, Speech Acts 141-143).

  

Question #1) What is your name & what pronouns do you use?

The rationale behind why I asked this question is simple yet important. Primarily, a person's name is incredibly central to their lives and often acts as an overarching label for who they are. It always helps to know a name. Secondly, a person's pronouns are equally as central to a person's life and identity, if not more so. Particularly when asking these questions for the purpose of linguistic anthropology, using the correct language to address a person is incredibly important and sets the tone for the conversation to follow.

This question engages course concepts because it invokes the interviewees to engage in setting up the "P" or participants part of the SPEAKING acronym and in some ways also the "N" or norms part of the acronym, by identifying who is involved in the language, and what aspects of their identity might be relevant to norms; pronouns often being an identifying factor in what role people might play within a particular context of society.

Question #2) Where are you from?

Seeing as this project aims to use location to understand lingual frames, this question, though simple, serves as a starting point to shape the discussion around an individual's specific "frame of language." 

This question also plays an important role for the audience/consumers of this blog because by revealing this one single thing about an individual's identity, it reveals a vast array of preconceived notions that people may have. For example, if you ask someone to tell you what reminds them of the American south (so long as they have a minimal context of united states history), many people will be able to rifle off a wide array of southern stereotypes. Understanding these views of regions is central to these conversations. 

This question aims to set up the "S" or setting part of the SPEAKING acronym, and subliminally it also begins to engage the "I" or Instrumentalities aspect of the acronym by identifying where the discussed dialect is going to be coming from and what dialects or registers might be associated with this setting.

Question #3) What is unique about the language/the way language is used where you are from?

This question aims at understanding how language works within a frame; it gives us an insider's opinion of how language authentically operates within particular frames. When I interviewed people, I often coupled this question with an example from my own experience in the midwest and explained how cultural/social aspects of society might be relevant. Though this question is open-ended and vague,  that is the beauty of it. It leaves it up to the interviewee to express what is important about their language without external influence. 

This question opens up the conversation to build upon the prior questions to potentially address all aspects of the SPEAKING acronym except for genres and ends, perhaps because those two factors can be more dependent on a specific interaction. This question is able to do this because it subtly asks interviewees to explain the uniqueness of the processes, tones, dialects, norms, and more that are involved in the frame they are looking to delineate and the only way this question can be answered refers to at least one or two of these letters in the acronym, but more than often it refers to more than one of these parts of the acronym. 

Question #4) What kind of environment does this use of language create?

This question was designed to build off of the prior question. This question allows whatever the interviewee deems unique about their language to reach another level of depth by revealing further societal structures that change and shape the way their language is used. 

This question engages the setting and genre aspect of the SPEAKING acronym by directly asking interviewees to delve into how language impacts and is impacted by both the scene and the categories of speech used. 

Question #5) Can you think of an interaction or saying that describes where you are from?

I threw this question in for two reasons; One, it allows people to address regional stereotypes (for example, the use of 'bless her heart' in the south) while adding some playful context to the conversation that adds yet another layer to the lingual frame. This question opens the conversation to allow other aspects of the interviewee's identity to characterize the lingual frames they grew up with. 

Though this question can engage almost all parts of the SPEAKING acronym, it particularly looks at the "G" or genre aspect of language because it reveals a lot about language by discussing language through specific categories or "sayings." Asking about a specific interaction also engages the "E" or ends aspect of the speaking acronym because it gives a more specific example of language and thus gives an example of what purpose language might play within this frame. 

Question #6) How has this impacted who you are? 

This was the second most important question that I asked because it asks the interviewee to literally consider the frame and how it shaped them. This question helps to solidify what aspects of language are most central to that person's frame and WHAT that frame means. What power a frame has in terms of its ability to shape discourse is incredibly important to shaping the way people live, and thus it is important to understand the scope of a Frame's power. 

This question refers back to the participants and ends aspect of the SPEAKING acronym because it asks interviewees to consider what role their particular identity has in the outcome of conversations, but also what that means to the participants, and in that way, it goes deeper than the SPEAKING acronym might originally intend to do. This question also opens up the conversation to work well with the next question by getting people to identify "rich points" without being directly asked because by revealing more parts of their identity, interviewees sometimes inadvertently revealed where they might not fit into the frame that they described to us. 

Question #7) Where do you think you break away from this language?

This was the most important question I asked because it requires the interviewee to think about the entirety of the frame they have existed under, thus outlining the most important aspects of that frame. This question allows the discourse to BREAK the frame by guiding the conversation to look at where people do not align with the frames they discussed rather than how they fit into those frames.

This question directly engages the concept of "rich points" by directly asking interviewees to identify where they feel that they diverge from the frame they described to us and why that matters to them. 

Once an interviewee has answered every question, all three class concepts have been thoroughly engaged in a natural and authentic sense that is capable of being critically analyzed from an anthropological viewpoint while also providing an interesting conversation to ponder.