Interaction before and during the survey interview: insights from conversation analysis

Abstract

ABSTRACT Conversation analysts have described the formation of actions and the sequential organization of talk in a wide variety of contexts and offer resources that can be used to study interaction in the interview. Conversational practices are relevant before and during the survey interview: First, the process of recruiting sample members to become respondents provides a site in which an analysis of actions can be applied with a measurable outcome – the effects on participation. Second, once the interview and the task of measurement begins, conversational practices intersect with – and sometimes disrupt – the ‘paradigmatic’ question-answer sequence, complicating our notions of what it means to ‘measure’ a construct in interaction. CA provides insights into interaction during both these tasks. This paper selectively reviews work that uses conversation analysis to understand the survey interview and offers some new applications (e.g., examining answers to yes-no questions).