UNIVERSITATEA „1 DECEMBRIE 1918”

ALBA IULIA

JOB INTERVIEW
– sociolinguistic analysis –

Masterand: Alina Mirela Curtusan

Specializare: Language and Communication for
Business Administration
Anul: II
Semestrul: I
 2010

Job Interview

(Greg arrives ten minutes early, checks in with the receptionist, and fills out his name card. He
adjusts his tie, buttons his suit jacket, and sits in the lobby. Five minutes later a secretary
brings him into a conference room. Several minutes later he stands to greet his interviewer.)
Interviewer: Hello, I am Robert Miller, a director of marketing at Gateway.
Greg: Hello, it's very nice to meet you.
(Greg shakes his hand firmly, smiles, and looks him in the eye with respect. As they take their
seats, Greg sits straight and pays close attention to his interviewer, and they chat briefly about
the weather.)
Interviewer: So, why don't you tell me about yourself?
Greg: Okay. I grew up in Ohio and studied engineering at Georgia Tech. In my first job at
Compaq, I learned a great deal about managing the flexible assembly of computers. After that
I implemented improvements in the logistics department at Dell, where I also put a lot of
effort into improving my writing skills. More recently, I've been negotiating with corporate
clients on large orders. It's been fascinating learning about the sales side of the business.
Outside of work I play basketball in several local leagues, and I also tutor adults in the local
library for Project Read.
(They talk briefly about writing at work and about teaching people how to read.)
Interviewer: What are you looking for in a position at Gateway?
Greg: I would like an opportunity to help Gateway grow its sales of computers. At the same
time I want to improve my understanding of the industry and to find new challenges in
managing teams of people who work in marketing.
Interviewer: We all have weaknesses. Could you describe one of yours?
Greg: In the past I've had trouble being organized. But now it's much less of a problem. I
constantly use checklists. And I use note cards to write myself reminders. I've found this a
great help -- just by developing the habit of writing things down.
Interviewer: Where do you see yourself in 5 years within the company?
Greg: I can see myself as a manager in a marketing or sales department, leading teams of
people to accomplish such things as improving customer feedback, growing corporate
accounts, or launching new advertising campaigns.
Interviewer: Are you willing to relocate?
Greg: Yes, of course. I've enjoyed experiencing new environments in the past. I'm sure it
would be fun to see other parts of the country, or the world for that matter.
Interviewer: Do you have any questions for me?
Greg: Yes, actually. I often get a good feel about a company by learning from the people who
work there. Could you tell me why it was that you first accepted a job at Gateway? And how
has it been fun and challenging?
(The interview continues very nicely.)
 Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including
cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used. It also studies how
language varieties differ between groups separated by certain social variables, e.g., ethnicity,
religion, status, gender, level of education, age, etc., and how creation and adherence to these
rules is used to categorize individuals in social or socioeconomic classes. As the usage of a
language varies from place to place (dialect), language usage varies among social classes, and
it is these sociolects that sociolinguistics studies. Sociolinguists attempt to isolate the
linguistic features used in particular situations that mark the various social relationships
among the participants and the significant elements of the situation. Factors influencing the
choice of sounds, grammatical elements, and vocabulary may include age, gender, education,
ethnic identity, occupation, and peer-group identification.
The article I have chosen to discuss is an authentic job interview. Drawing on critical
discourse analysis and sociolinguistics, as well as other fields, it explores the relationship
between success in job interviews and communicative style. The recontextualization of life
world resources is approached through both qualitative and quantitative analysis of spoken
language. It demonstrates that certain communicative styles and recontextualizations formed
by a combination of life world and job-related perspectives are more successful in job
interviews. On the basis of sociolinguistic evidence, I can argue that these styles and
recontextualizations are products of general processes of socialization rather than products of
formal education.
The social context within which the interviewed is operating determines all the choices
he makes about language use and text production. These choices thus create an appropriate
degree of formality. He could have not used an informal language due to the situation he is
facing. Therefore, he did not say “Hey, man! What’s up?” when he met the employer. He used
a formal way of addressing: “Hello, it’s very nice to meet you”. The same did the employer:
“Hello, I am Robert Miller, a director of marketing at Gateway.”
All the additional information underlines the polite and strict environment that an
interview imposes: “Greg arrives ten minutes early”, “checks in with the receptionist”, “fills
out his name card”, “he adjusts his tie”, “buttons his suit jacket”, “he stands to greet his
interviewer”. His position and gestures sum up his body language, which in this kind of
situations speak more than words. Obviously, as I said before, the language he uses is very
important as well. He could not have made a good impression if he had used a trivial language
or slang. The company’s field of activity, together with the position Greg is applying for, set
up a standard of language and behavior, better called register (broadly, the combination of
lexico-grammatical choices appropriate to the social setting and context). In systemic
linguistics, register can be described by field, tenor and mode. The lexis (the language used)
includes terms which cluster around the same area of meaning (semantic field) or are
commonly associated with a particular type of text:
Interviewer: What are you looking for in a position at Gateway?
Greg: I would like an opportunity to help Gateway grow its sales of
computers. At the same time I want to improve my understanding of the industry and to find
new challenges in managing teams of people who work in marketing.
Interviewer: Where do you see yourself in 5 years within the company?
 Greg: I can see myself as a manager in a marketing or sales department,
leading teams of people to accomplish such things as improving customer feedback, growing
corporate accounts, or launching new advertising campaigns.
“Grow its sales of computers”, “improve my understanding of the industry”, “find new
challenges in managing teams of people”, “marketing”, “manager”, “sales department”,
“improving customer feedback”, “ growing corporate accounts”, “launching new advertising
campaigns”- all these expressions and sintagms are part of the same register, economics and
marketing.
As a conclusion, it is easy to notice that the social situation in which this job interview
takes place has a strong effect on the language used. The way in which these social rules and
conventions affect language are also important to the context, because they are evidence of
the producer’s background, experience and knowledge: “I grew up in Ohio and studied
engineering at Georgia Tech. In my first job at Compaq, I learned a great deal about managing
the flexible assembly of computers. After that I implemented improvements in the logistics
department at Dell, where I also put a lot of effort into improving my writing skills. More
recently, I've been negotiating with corporate clients on large orders. It's been fascinating
learning about the sales side of the business. Outside of work I play basketball in several local
leagues, and I also tutor adults in the local library for Project Read”.
At a meeting in which you wish to project an image of yourself as a confident and
knowledgeable person in order to impress your employer, you are likely to be more formal
and assertive than when trying to book a holiday with a travel agent or when calling for an
emergency plumber in the middle of the night. Managing the vast range of social interactions
that we all engage in sounds like a complex task but, although we sometimes make mistakes,
we usually do get it right.