Wywiad prasowy : język, gatunek, interakcja

Abstract

The author treats an interview as verbal interaction, in the course o f which two persons co-create a text o f the interview genre. The study consists o f six chapters. The first one, which argues in favour o f interactionism as a base for interview studies, a discussion o f theoretical proposals concerning language communication is presented. The starting point is de Saussure’s circuit o f speech (circuit de la parole). Also the mathematical model by Shannon and Weaver is shown as a linguistic modification accomplished by R. Jakobson. The latter model became an impulse for further reformulation. Finally the author discusses interactional metaphors o f communication perceived as orchestra, market (marchié) or theatre. In this framework communication (verbal and non-verbal) is regarded as an integrated whole, in which all senses are made use of. Interactional theories enable linguists referring to interdisciplinary studies to submit the phenomenon o f human communication to a versatile analysis. Chapter 2 deals with the global structure o f an interview formed by hierarchically ordered units: dialogues - interaction, sequence and exchange (échange) and monologues - interventions (intervention) and speech acts (actes de tangue), the unit called a module being o f a separate status. This claim of the author is based on numerous works o f the School o f Geneva represented by E. Roulet. The analysis o f interview is o f structural (descriptive) nature and forms the basis for further studies into the dynamics o f the interview text and principles o f its textual composition (conversational syntax). In Chapter 3 the author presents characteristic features o f the interview participants, paying particular attention to their text-creating and sociolinguistic roles as well as to the paratextual aspect of such message signals as names o f the participants. Three classes o f the interview actors are identified: interviewer (intervieweur), interviewee (inten’iewe) and the collective text recipient (reader). The traditional division o f roles into senders and recipients is replaced by the author’s concept of co-creators (coénunciateurs) o f the message. Chapter 4 raises the question of subjectivity and subjectivisation in the interview against the background of the theory of subjectivity by E. Benveniste. The author underlines the strategic activities o f the interview participants aiming at emphasising the subjectivity o f the interview. Numerous manifestations o f subjectivity are studied in terms o f various levels o f linguistic activity o f the participants. Chapter 5 develops the idea o f cliché and repetitiveness o f the interview, which due to its reiteration becomes an area o f mass culture, where it plays with a stereotype: its construction, fixation and elimination. Finally Chapter 6 presents the press interview both as a genre (in Bakhtin’s sense) and as a type of verbal interaction, in which the overriding organisational principle is dialogue. By placing it among other types o f dialogue interaction for which conversation (conversation) is the reference point, she indicates those elements o f a definition o f an interview which make it possible to identify its prototypical form. The author shows variations of the prototypical formula, which by violating the genre model emphasise its constant fundamental properties.