Abstract
The validity of interview data for social science research is under sophisticated critique. In this article, verbal interaction in semi-structured interviews (SSIs) is compared to that in naturalistic conversation in terms of participant use of and response to indirect complaints (ICs). SSIs are analyzed with Boxer's (1993a&c) IC coding scheme and compared to her findings on conversational data. Interviewees are demonstrated to communicate like friends as opposed to strangers, intimates, or other possibly unique pattern. The SSIs are also shown to be asymmetric in that interviewers focus on topic control although, at times, respond to ICs in more normative ways through offering different kinds of commentary. The pattern of interviewer commentary mirrors that of the conversational data except in relation to the dearth of commiseration in the SSIs. In conclusion, the value of this analysis is that it suggests, tentatively, that interviewee contribution within SSIs might, in some situations, be extrapolated to one particular kind of everyday interactional context—communication between friends— although the asymmetry of the interaction demonstrates its institutional nature.
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