Learning How to Ask

Abstract

Interviews are ubiquitous in modern society, and they play a crucial role in social scientific research. But, as Charles Briggs convincingly argues in this book, received interviewing techniques rest on fundamental misapprehensions about the nature both of the interview as a communicative event, and of the nature of the data that it produces. Furthermore, interviewers rarely examine the compatibility of interviews as a means of acquiring information to one another. These oversights often blind interviewers to ensuing errors of interpretation, as well as to the limitations of the interview as a means of acquiring data. To conflict these problems, Professor Briggs presents an analysis of the 'communicative blunders' that he himself committed in conducting research interviews among Spanish-speakers in northern New Mexico. By focusing on these errors and exploring how they may be avoided, he is able to propose new techniques for designing, implementing, and analyzing interview-based research. These rest on identifying the subjects' resources for conveying information, and the relative compatability of the shared rules and understandings that underlie their strategies with those associated with interviews. Critical of existing paradigms of interviewing, which he sees as deriving from Western 'folk' theories of reality and communication, Briggs shows that the development of more sophisticated interviewing methodologies requires further research into interviewing itself. Briggs's conclusions provide a basis for the reexamination of current uses of interviews in a wide range of contexts - from social science research to job applications, welfare and health care delivery, criminal and legal investigations, journalism and broadcasting, and other areas of everyday life. His book will appeal to linguists, sociologists, anthropologists, historians, psychologists, as well as other readers whose research or professional activities depend on the use of interviews.

The craft of interviewing in realist evaluation

“…Many useful handbooks, textbooks, journals and web resources exist on how to conduct qualitative interviews (Gubrium, 2012;Mason, 2002;Holstein and Gubrium;, Mishler, 1991Briggs, 1986). Technically, just in terms of how questions are asked, qualitative…”

Experiências antropológicas e educativas com estudantes idosos

“…Não houve direcionamento por parte da professora sobre as escolhas das temáticas e, como alguns estudantes escolheram entrevistas como recursos metodológicos, um resumo do texto de Briggs (1986), "Learning how to ask", foi distribuído aos estudantes com algumas sugestões: "[...] o uso da entrevista como ferramenta que parte sempre de um objetivo e de uma metodologia escolhida pelo (a) pesquisador (a). Este (a) impõe uma visão sua, entendida como o direcionamento dado pelo (a) entrevistador (a) à entrevista" (BRIGGS, 1986). Dessa forma, os estudantes perceberam que as entrevistas que seriam realizadas por eles dependeriam não somente das respostas de seus entrevistados, mas de toda a (inter)relação criada, do "clima" estabelecido, do recorte dado.…”

Itinerario de una investigación sociolingüística en colaboración con niños y maestros en un contexto bilingüe guaraní-castellano en la provincia de Corrientes, Argentina

“…Concibiendo los intercambios conversacionales, no exclusivamente en cuanto al contenido referencial de las emisiones verbales, sino analizando la situación comunicativa en sí producida por los hablantes. Hemos concebido las entrevistas realizadas por los niños como eventos de habla en sí y en particular consideramos los aspectos indexicales de la interacción producida entre niños y adultos (Briggs, 1986).…”