Research interview as social interaction

This chapter discusses and empirically illustrates the epistemic implications of a dialogic approach to language when used as a research tool. I analyze examples of one of the most commonly used methods in social science research, the interview, and discuss some implications of foregrounding the performative and emergent properties of dialogues occurring between the researcher and her informants. I contend that applying a dialogic view of language to the specific forms of talk used for doing research, requires a substantial change in how we conceive of scientific knowledge and what we expect from it. This is perhaps the reason why researchers often ignore contemporary linguistic theory and preserve their working tools from it: what if we consider referentiality as a dialogic, interactive achievement?