Fitting stories into boxes
rhetorical and textual constraints on candidates' performances in British job interviews
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/japl.v2.i1.45Keywords:
job interviews, narrative, textualisation, discrimination, oraganisations, ethnic minoritiesAbstract
This paper examines a site where inequality is produced. Street-level bureaucrats make decisions about candidates’ suitability for inclusion in their organisation, and therefore paid employment, on the basis of their ability to produce ‘bureaucratically processable’ talk (Iedema, 1999). This requirement implicitly entails adherence to culturally specific conventions and possession of specific forms of linguistic capital (Bourdieu, 1991) and creates a linguistic penalty for those who do not know the rules of this cultural game. Drawing on the first ever substantial data set of video-recorded job interviews in the UK, this paper analyses how candidates born abroad are disadvantaged by two interactional procedures that are central to the institutional discourses of the job interview: narrative accounts and the keeping of a written record. In our data, candidates’ responses were constrained by the requirement to produce a ‘standard’ narrative, and to make their talk recordable. When things went wrong, less support was given by interviewers, and institutional requirements were tightened for those candidates who found them most difficult to manage.
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Trinch, S. (2003) Latina’s Narratives of Domestic Abuse: discrepant versions of violence. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Young, L. (1982) Inscrutability revisited. In J. Gumperz (ed.) Language and Social Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Auer, P. (1998) Learning how to play the game: an investigation of role-played job interviews in East Germany Text 18: 17–38.
Auer, P. and Kern, F. (2000) Three ways of analysing communication between East and West Germans as intercultural communication. In D. Luzio and S. Günthner (eds) Culture in Communication: analysis of intercultural situations 89–117. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Bamberg, M. (2006) Biographic-narrative research, quo vadis? A critical review of ‘big stories’ from the perspective of ‘small stories’. In K. Milnes, C. Horrocks, N. Kelly, B. Roberts and D. Robinson (eds) Narrative, Memory and Knowledge: representations, aesthetics and contexts. Huddersfield: University of Huddersfield Press.
Bauman, R. (1975) Verbal Art as Performance. American Anthropologist 77: 290–311.
Baynham, M. and de Fina, A. (eds) (2005) Dislocations/Relocations: narratives of displacement. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.
Blommaert, J. (2003) Commentary: a sociolinguistics of globalisation. Journal of Sociolinguistics 7: 607–23.
Bourdieu, P. (1991) Language & Symbolic Power. Edited by J. Thompson. (Translated by G. Raymond and M. Adamson) Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Button, G. (1992) Answers as interactional products: two sequential practices used in job interviews. In P. Drew and J. Heritage. Talk at Work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chafe, W. (ed.) (1980) The Pear Stories: cognitive, cultural and linguistic aspects of narrative production. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
de Certeau, M. (1985) The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Erickson, F. (1985) Listening and speaking. In D. Tannen (ed.) Language and Linguistics: the interdependence of theory, data and application. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Erickson, F. and Schultz, J. (1982) The Counsellor as Gatekeeper: social interaction in interviews. New York: Academic Press.
Fabian, J. (2001) Time, narration, and the exploration of Central Africa. Narrative 9 (1): 3–20.
Fairclough, N. (1992) Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity.
Fitzgerald, H. (2003) How Different Are We? Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd.
Georgakopoulou, A. (2003) Looking back when looking ahead: adolescents’ identity management in narrative practices. In J. Androutsopoulos and A. Georgakopoulou (eds) Discourse Constructions of Youth Identities 75–91. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.
Goffman, E. (1974) Frame Analysis: an essay on the organization of experience. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press.
Gumperz, J. (1982) Discourse Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gumperz, J. and Berenz, N. (1993) Transcribing conversational exchanges. In J. Edwards and M. Lampert (eds) Transcription and Coding Methods for Language Research. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates Inc.
Habermas, J. (1984) Theory of Communicative Action. Volume 1. (Translated by T. McCarthy) London: Heinemann.
Heritage, J. and Watson, D. (1979) Reformulations as conversational objects. In G. Psathas (ed.) Everyday Language: studies in ethnomethodology 123–63. New York: Irvington Publishers.
Heydon, G. (2005) The Language of Police Interviewing. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
House, G., Kasper, G. and Ross, S. (eds) (2003) Misunderstanding in Social Life. Harlow: Pearson Education.
Iedema, R. (1999) Formalising organizational meaning. Discourse and Society (Special issue. Discourse in organisations) 10: 1.
Iedema, R. (2003) Discourses of Post-Bureaucratic Organization. Document design companion series. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Irvine, J. and Gal, S. (1998) Language, ideology and linguistic differentiation in Kroskrity (ed.) Regimes of Language: discursive constructions of authority, identity and power. New Mexico: School of American Research.
Jacquemet, M. (2005) The registration interview: restricting refugees’ narrative performances. In M. Baynham and A. de Fina (eds) Dislocations/Relocations: narratives of displacement 194–216. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.
Kerekes, J. (2003) Distrust: a determining factor in the outcomes of gatekeeping encounters. In G. House, G. Kasper and S. Ross (eds) Misunderstanding in Social Life. Harlow: Pearson Education.
Lee, A. (2003) Discourse structure and rhetoric of English narratives: differences between native English and Chinese non-native English writers Text 23(3): 347–68.
Labov, W. (1972) Language in the Inner City. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Linde, C. (1993) Life Stories: the creation of coherence. New York: Oxford University Press.
Linde, C. (2001) Narrative and social tacit knowledge. Journal of Knowledge Management 5(2): 160–71.
Mäkitalo, A. and Säljö, R. (2002) Talk in institutional context and institutional context in talk: catagories and situational practices. Text 22: 57–82.
Maryns, K. (2005) Displacement in asylum seekers’ narratives. In M. Baynham and A. de Fina (eds) Dislocations/Relocations: narratives of displacement 174–193. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.
Miller, P. (1994) Accounting as social and institutional practice: an introduction. In A.G. Hopwood and P. Miller (eds) Accounting as Social and Institutional Practice 1–39. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mishler, E. (forthcoming) The double arrow of time. In A. de Fina, D. Schiffrin and M. Bamberg (eds) Discourse and Identities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mumby, D. (1988) Communication and Power in Organizations: discourse, ideology and domination. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Psathas, G. (1995) Conversation Analysis: the study of talk in interaction. London: Sage.
Roberts, C. (1985) The Interview Game. London: BBC.
Roberts, C. and Campbell, S. (2006) Talk on Trial: job interviews, language and ethnicity. DWP Research Report No. 344. http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/rrs2006. asp#talkontrial
Scheuer, J. (2001) Recontextualisation and communicative styles in job interviews. Discourse Studies 3: 223–48.
Strathern, M. (ed.) (2000) Audit Cultures: anthropological studies in accountability, ethics and the academy. London & New York: Routledge.
Tannen, D. (1989) Repetition, Dialogue, and Imagery in Conversational Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thornborrow, J. (2002) Power Talk: language and interaction in institutional discourse. London: Longman.
Toolan, M. (2001) Narrative: a critical linguistic introduction. London: Routledge.
Trinch, S. (2003) Latina’s Narratives of Domestic Abuse: discrepant versions of violence. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Young, L. (1982) Inscrutability revisited. In J. Gumperz (ed.) Language and Social Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zimmerman, E. (1998) Identity, context and interaction. In C. Antaki and S. Widdicombe (eds) Identities in Talk. London: Sage.
Published
2007-02-17
Issue
Section
Articles
License
Equinox Publishing Ltd.
How to Cite
Roberts, C., & Campbell, S. (2007). Fitting stories into boxes: rhetorical and textual constraints on candidates’ performances in British job interviews. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice, 2(1), 45-73. https://doi.org/10.1558/japl.v2.i1.45
