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
