Against the backdrop of general considerations of the interview as a genre, the paper discusses under which theoretical conditions interviews are suitable instruments for discourse analysis. With a special interest in questions of the linguistic constitution of shared knowledge in discourse, the authors outline the discourse-linguistic status of interviews in a systematic way. Based on a discourse analytical characterization of the genre of the interview, the preliminary assumptions of the present paper are tested through a pilot study which deals with the question of the contemporary state of democracy. This explorative European interview project documents and demonstrates the possibilities of a computerassisted interpretation of the discursivity of interviews. The paper thus makes a fundamental contribution to the further exploration of discourse-linguistic methods, to discussions about the current state of democracy, as well as to reflections on the interview as a complex research genre in its interdisciplinary dimensions, including digital-humanities methods.
In Carsten Junker (eds.), Inspecting the Interview: A Companion, 201–248. Berlin: De Gruyter.
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ISBN: 9783111086231