“God forbid!” is a widespread utterance in common language and widely present in the language of the subject of sociological interviews. My essay examines a wide variety of occurences of this sentence in interviews and, using concepts common both to linguistic and sociological thought, tries to offer an analysis and a typology. My analysis also affords an opportunity for a broader debate on a mode of communication which has been developing over the last few decades, basing its premises on Goffmann’s sociology, Benveniste’s linguistics and Bachtin’s metalinguistics. My model questions and diversifies the alleged unity of the “speaking subject”, and may allow a sociologist analysing the texts of interviews to abandon the traditional representation of the interview as a mere “instrument for collecting information”, assuming it instead as an object of observation which may be sociologically relevant as such. From this standpoint, analysing the interview corresponds to analysing the wide “society” which respondents and interviewers build among each other by using their “moves” and their “stagings”; this society is not only inhabited by their “words” but also by a wide variety of other “voices”.

«Per carità di Dio!». Immagini di sé e valori in gioco nell’intervista.

SORMANO, Andrea
2012-01-01

Abstract

“God forbid!” is a widespread utterance in common language and widely present in the language of the subject of sociological interviews. My essay examines a wide variety of occurences of this sentence in interviews and, using concepts common both to linguistic and sociological thought, tries to offer an analysis and a typology. My analysis also affords an opportunity for a broader debate on a mode of communication which has been developing over the last few decades, basing its premises on Goffmann’s sociology, Benveniste’s linguistics and Bachtin’s metalinguistics. My model questions and diversifies the alleged unity of the “speaking subject”, and may allow a sociologist analysing the texts of interviews to abandon the traditional representation of the interview as a mere “instrument for collecting information”, assuming it instead as an object of observation which may be sociologically relevant as such. From this standpoint, analysing the interview corresponds to analysing the wide “society” which respondents and interviewers build among each other by using their “moves” and their “stagings”; this society is not only inhabited by their “words” but also by a wide variety of other “voices”.
2012
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121
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A.Sormano
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2318/121648
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