Looking for rapport in the metacommunicative features of an ethnographic interview

Abstract

In his book, Learning How to Ask, Briggs (1986) argues that we should study the interview ethnographically to understand issues of power between interviewer and interviewee. Such an ethnography involves four phases: Phase 1. Learn how to ask; Phase 2. Design an appropriate methodology; Phase 3. Be reflexive in the interviewing process; and Phase 4. Analyze the interview. Within the fourth phase, Briggs proposes an analytical process that looks beyond the referential content of utterances. He proposes a two-step procedure: first, map the structure of the interview as a whole before looking at the utterances in particular, and second, abstract away from the referential content of the utterances to look at metacommunicative features. We can find these features by focusing on contextualization, both within the interview event itself and across events and texts that precede and follow the interview. Another way to observe metacommunicative features is to focus on the non-referential elements of the interview event. Briggs’ proposal has had an important influence on interview research that has followed the publication of his book. However, some of Briggs’ explicit suggestions for how to analyze interview data remain largely absent from our scholarly practices. This chapter attempts to accomplish two goals. The first is to apply the analytical method proposed by Briggs (1986) to an interview that was experienced as rich in rapport to see whether applying it helps us to identify which metacommunicative elements contributed to that experience. The second is to lay some groundwork for future studies that could bring together converging theories and divergent methodologies for understanding rapport across a range of language-focused disciplines.