The non-structured interview as a form of conversation: reasons and suggestions for its analysis

• Autor(a) principal: Mattos, Pedro Lincoln C. L. de
• Data de Publicação: 2005
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista de Administração Pública
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.fgv.br/rap/article/view/6789
• topic: analysis of interviews; open interviews; pragmatic analysis of conversation; methodology of research.; análise de entrevistas; entrevistas não-estruturadas; análise pragmática da conversação; metodologia de pesquisa.

The non-structured interview - the one in which the interviewee decides on the construction of his answer - has been more and more used in management research. In breaking away form the traditional concept of language (which would encompass 'contents'), this article argues that the analysis of open interviews would gain from approaching the pragmatic analysis of language. The main reason for this is that non-structured and semi-structured interviews really are a special form of conversation. The problem under focus is how to legitimately jump from the speech of one interviewee, and then of several others, to a interpretive meaning. In a dialog with Bardin's text the article initially discusses what could be happening to 'content analysis'. It then suggests where a 'divider' between conversation content analysis and pragmatic analysis could be established. It finally re-interprets the interview and presents the basic concepts for its analysis, according to the new perspective, suggesting systematic procedures to support and facilitate the analytical effort. The purpose is to offer another option to academic research.