Session 7 Lipovsky 2006.pdf - Course Materials Repository

Abstract 

Candidates’ negotiation of their expertise 

in job interviews 

Caroline Lipovsky 

Department of French Studies, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia 

Received 30 June 2003; received in revised form 6 May 2005; accepted 30 May 2005 

This article discusses how candidates, in job interviews, negotiate their expertise so as to make a 

good impression on their interviewers. It is based on the analysis of five role-played interviews in 

French and four authentic interviews in either French or French and English, the candidates’ 

comments on the impression they had tried to convey and the interviewers’ comments on the 

impression they had of the candidates. The analysis uses a systemic functional approach and the 

theory of politeness, and highlights how candidates’ lexico-grammatical choices play a role in their 

interviewers’ impressions of them. It also shows that the candidates’ discourse and therefore the 

impression they make is linked to the ongoing interaction with their interviewers. Last, it establishes a 

useful link between lexico-grammar analysis and impression management theory. 

# 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 

Keywords: Job interviews; Impression management; Systemic functional linguistics; French language; English 

language 

1. Introduction 

Journal of Pragmatics 38 (2006) 1147–1174 

www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma 

In an increasingly competitive employment market, making a good impression on 

one’s interviewer/s could make the difference between getting the job or not, in particular 

when candidates have similar qualifications and experience (as would be the case for 

young graduates entering the job market for instance), or when competing for positions 

where the ability to make a good impression is part of the job’s requirements (as in public 

E-mail address: Caroline.Lipovsky@arts.usyd.edu.au. 

0378-2166/$ – see front matter # 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 

doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2005.05.007

1148 

C. Lipovsky / Journal of Pragmatics 38 (2006) 1147–1174 

relations, sales or customer service). In this project, I set out to analyse interactions 

between interviewers and candidates in job interviews, to see if it is possible to determine 

why some candidates make a good impression on their interviewer while some others 

fail. 

Impression management was first analysed by Erving Goffman in The presentation of 

self in everyday life (1959). It describes ‘‘the way in which the individual in ordinary work 

situations presents himself and his activity to others, the ways in which he guides and 

controls the impression they form of him, and the kinds of things he may and may not do 

while sustaining his performance before them’’ (Preface). Individuals make use of selfpresentation 

tactics in particular when they care about others’ impression of them and want 

to influence their audience in a desirable way (Jones and Pittman, 1982). So in the context 

of a job interview, candidates may engage in impression management to convince their 

interviewer/s to give them the job. Gilmore and Ferris (1989) indeed showed that 

interviewers could be influenced by impression management tactics regardless of the 

candidate’s qualifications and work experience. 

Job applicants are usually offered an interview on the assumption that they do 

possess the skills and experience required for filling the position, so that all the 

candidates who get an interview are a priori qualified for the position. Frequently in the 

course of their interview, ‘‘the candidate [...] responds to queries dealing with matters 

that overlap in part with material covered in the written application’’ and ‘‘it is 

frequently the case that relatively new factual information is transmitted’’ (Gumperz, 

1992:308). This correlates with one interviewer’s, Inès’s, expectations of the candidates 

in this study 1 : 

Je crois qu’on avait pas des attentes énormes, simplement que ça corresponde 

justement à ce qu’il [le candidat] présentait au niveau de son CV ou de sa lettre 

d’intérêt. 

I don’t think we had any huge expectations, only that it [the candidate’s interview 

impression] would match the presentation in his CV and cover letter. 

Asking for information that was already presented in the candidate’s application 

suggests that interviewers are more interested in how candidates might ‘‘perform’’ than 

how they might ‘‘inform’’ them (Scheuer, 2001). It is in this respect that candidates are 

competing against each other and should convince their interviewers to give them the job. 

So, if candidates’ expertise helps qualifying them for an interview, the ‘packaging’ of this 

expertise takes precedence over the information itself in the course of the interview. A 

popular writer, Paul Stevens, a career counsellor in Sydney and author of Win that job! 

(Stevens, 1991), suggests that ‘‘the manner in which you respond to questions is far more 

important than the content of your reply’’ (page 76). Likewise, various studies on job 

interviews (Adelswärd, 1988; Gumperz, 1992; Kerekes, 2001; Scheuer, 2001) show that 

more than the information per se, the way it is presented influences the interviewers’ 

appraisal of candidates, that is, the candidates’ performance or negotiating of their 

1 The aim of the pilot study was to identify key features of impression management as well as to test the 

analysing tools. Since the findings from the authentic data bear out the findings from the pilot study, I will not go 

through every detail of the analysis of the pilot interviews in this paper.

Table 1 

Interview context and participants 

expertise plays a significant role in the interviewers’ impression of them, and can prompt a 

job offer. Therefore, the first task of candidates in a job interview is to negotiate their skills 

and professional experience, to demonstrate to their interviewers that they belong as 

competent professionals. 

The following section describes the interview context, participants and data analysis 

procedures. 

2. Description of the study 

2.1. Interview context and participants 

C. Lipovsky / Journal of Pragmatics 38 (2006) 1147–1174 1149 

Candidates 

Craig 2 

Clothilde 

Position at stake Teach English + 

Teach English + 

post-graduate research 

post-graduate research 

Candidates’ native language English English 

Interviewers Inès Inès 

Ingrid Ingrid 

Interviewers’ native language French 1 French 1 

English 1 English 1 

Language of the interview English and French English and French 

Length of interviews 10 min 13 min 

Length of follow-up interviews 111 min (1 h 51 min) 122 min (2 h 02 min) 

This study examined four authentic job interviews in either French or French 

and English lasting 1 h and 23 min, and post-interviews of a total duration of 9 h and 

19 min. It followed a pilot study of five role-played interviews. The interviews took 

place in Sydney, Australia. 

Among the four original interviews, two were selected for presentation and 

discussion (as outlined in Table 1). The positions for which the two candidates were 

interviewed involved teaching English as a foreign language and, in addition, postgraduate 

research at the host university in France; both candidates are native speakers of 

English. The interviews involved two interviewers: Ingrid, a native speaker of English 

and Inès, a French interviewer; the interviews were conducted in both English and 

French. Last, the two interviewees, Craig and Clothilde, were competing for the same 

position. 

Craig and Clothilde are interviewed by experienced teachers and researchers, that is, 

individuals who do the same job as they are being interviewed for. This has two 

implications with regard to the impression they may convey to their interviewers. First, 

2 

The participants’ names have been changed to protect their identity. Likewise, names of institutions and 

courses have been omitted or changed in the following.

1150 

the candidates and their interviewers are more likely to hold shared values on their 

profession, allowing them to build rapport in the course of the interview. Then, there is 

some possibility for the interviewers and the candidates to build solidarity through 

establishing ‘role comembership’, such as ‘as teachers/researchers, we can understand and 

relate to each other’, or ‘institutional comembership’ as co-members of the same institution 

(see Erickson and Shultz, 1982; Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford, 1993). 

Furthermore, the candidates have quite similar backgrounds to their interviewers’, if not 

in age or gender or native tongue, at least in terms of race and educational background. This 

may help create some common ground or solidarity between the participants. Kerekes 

(2001:215) reports that ‘‘the staffing supervisors [in her study] reacted more favorably to 

those candidates whose backgrounds more closely resembled their own’’. This sets this 

study apart from other studies (such as Akinnaso and Seabrook Ajirotutu, 1982 or 

Gumperz, 1992) where the candidates have quite different backgrounds from their 

interviewers. 

I studied non-native speakers of French because my initial hypothesis concerned the 

likelihood of intercultural differences between the non-native candidates’ answers and 

their interviewers’ expectations. 3 However, the fact that the candidates speak French as 

a foreign language had little influence on the impression that they made on their 

interviewers. This was revealed by the analysis of the post-interviews and examination of 

the features that struck the French interviewer as inappropriate. In all the post-interviews, 

there are only a few remarks pertaining to the misuse or mispronunciation of a French 

word by a candidate, probably because of their high proficiency in French. No discrepancy 

was found between the English native speaker’s and the French interviewer’s impressions 

of the candidates. In the pilot study, one candidate’s answer to the question ‘‘Parlez-moi de 

vous’’ (‘‘Tell me about yourself’’) was found too personal, although it is hard to determine 

whether this resulted from intercultural misunderstanding of the interviewer’s intent in 

asking this question or the candidate’s lack of experience with job interviews (see 

Lipovsky, 2003, for further discussion). Likewise, Kerekes (2001:217) reports that 

‘‘sharing similar cultural backgrounds and making similar assumptions about 

expectations in a job interview have to do more with educational background, gender, 

race, than with shared L1s’’. Thus, intercultural communication is not an issue in this 

study. 

2.2. Data analysis procedures 


All the interviews were both audio-taped and video-recorded. I then conducted separate 

follow-up interviews of the interviewers and the candidates. I conducted post-interviews 

because the logical source for judging the effect of impression management tactics is their 

target, that is the interviewer, and so the first method I applied for analysing the data was 

subject-driven. I used ‘‘metapragmatic assessment’’ (Kasper and Dahl, 1991:232) of the 

candidates’ discourse. This was carried out through separate follow-up interviews of the 

candidate and the interviewer, where they watched the interview and talked it through, 

3 

In the same manner, the pilot study includes four non-native candidates having interviews in French and one 

native French candidate.

commenting on the impressions that they were trying to convey (for the candidate) and the 

impression they had had (for the interviewer). This method provided insight into the 

impression that the candidates were trying to project, into how well they thought they had 

done in conveying this image, and into the interviewers’ perspective on how successfully 

this was realised. I then analysed the language of the interviews using the systemicfunctional 

and politeness approaches. 

3. Theoretical framework 


For analysing how the candidates negotiated their expertise, I used the theories of 

Politeness (Goffman, 1972; Brown and Levinson, 1987) and Systemic Functional 

Linguistics (hereafter SFL) (Halliday, 1994) — the latter in particular as to the experiential 

metafunction whereby interactants construe their experience of the world. 

Some authors (e.g. Gumperz, 1992; Kerekes, 2001; Scheuer, 2001) report for 

instance that candidates’ volubility plays a role in interviewers’ positive impression of 

them. The SFL approach allowed a detailed analysis of the elements of the candidates’ 

lexico-grammatical choices that conveyed an impression of volubility to their 

interviewers. In the same manner, it highlighted the linguistic resources that gave 

the impression of an answer that was not only longenough,butalsoinformativeand 

relevant. The SFL analysis was then correlated with the interviewers’ follow-up 

interview comments that described in detail their impressions of the candidates. This 

permitted the findings of the lexico-grammatical analysis to be checked against the 

interviewers’ impressions. 

Politeness theory was used to highlight the beliefs that motivated the candidates’ 

linguistic choices. The interviewers’ objective is to evaluate the candidates’ performance 

so as to choose the most suitable applicant for the available position (Akinnaso and 

Seabrook Ajirotutu, 1982). Evaluation is important in terms of face as ‘‘those who are in the 

power of a fellow-participant tend to be very much concerned with the valuation he makes 

of them’’ (Goffman, 1972:26). The more candidates are interested in a position, the more 

they may also use impression management to present a positive image of themselves 

(personally, or regarding their past and present activities) which they think will help them 

get the job. As Kerbrat-Orecchioni states: 

An important part of the material generated in an interaction has no other function 

than relational – so that even when their content is indisputably informational, the 

utterances always have a relational value as well: search for consensus, desire to be 

right or to get the better of somebody, being concerned about saving other person’s 

face or making the other lose face ...; a value that acts insidiously but efficiently in 

the dialogue, even if it is often more concealed, because less ‘‘official’’, than the 

informational content. (1992:13; my translation) 

So while candidates negotiate their expertise, they are guided by intentions and beliefs 

that motivate their language choices and how they present this expertise. The SFL 

approach described what the candidates said and how they said it, whereas the theory of

1152 

politeness explained why they said what they said and why they said it in the way they 

said it. 

3.1. The SFL model 


The SFL approach views language as a semiotic system, that is a resource that allows the 

creation of meanings by making choices (Halliday, 1994:xxvi; Eggins, 1994:2–3). These 

choices may be phonological, lexico-grammatical or semantic. The analyst can interpret 

each of these choices in view of the choices that were put aside by the speaker, that is the 

different ways they could have expressed themselves, but did not select (Eggins, 1994:3). 

The present data are analysed in terms of impression management. The SFL approach 

made explicit the speaker’s choices, and so allowed the interpretation of the inferences that 

the interviewers made about the candidates, based on the choices of language that the 

candidates made, consciously or unconsciously, and which conveyed an impression to the 

interviewers. 

A speaker’s choices are determined by the context of situation (Eggins, 1994:7–9), so a 

job applicant like Clare (in the pilot study) will not present her professional experience in 

the same way when composing her résumé, writing an application letter, discussing with a 

friend or talking to an interviewer. In the same manner, choices are influenced by the 

cultural context (Eggins, 1994:30–33). This means that candidates and interviewers from 

different cultural backgrounds may have different expectations about what a job interview 

consists of (see for example Akinnaso and Seabrook Ajirotutu, 1982; Roberts and Sayers, 

1987; Gumperz, 1992; Bilbow and Yeung, 1998). 

Another important feature of the SFL approach is that it views language as made up of 

three concurrent layers of meanings (Halliday, 1994:xiii; Eggins, 1994:3; Eggins and 

Slade, 1997:48–49): 

the ideational meaning for presenting one’s experiences (‘the experiential metafunction’), 

which deals with the ways speakers describe reality through their choice 

of participants, actions/relations and circumstances (in other words, what they talk 

about), 

the interpersonal meaning that outlines the interactants’ relationship (‘the interpersonal 

metafunction’), which deals with ways of using language between people such as 

questioning, ordering, etc., 

the textual meaning that encodes the other two meanings into a message, and deals with 

the ordering of the elements in the clause with regard to the speaker’s purpose. 

If Clare’s interviewers ask her to present her professional experience as a tutor, she will 

use features of the experiential metafunction such as: (1) processes, that is types of ‘goingson’ 

such as doing, being, happening, sensing or meaning, (2) participants in the process, 

such as herself or her students, and (3) circumstances associated with these processes, so 

she can exemplify events such as who did what, how, where and when (Halliday, 

1994:106–109). Thus, investigating features of the experiential metafunction will be useful 

for exploring the kind of linguistic resources that the candidates draw on for presenting 

their work experience to their interviewers and negotiating their expertise.

3.2. The politeness model 


The SFL approach provides tools for describing what a speaker’s linguistic choices are. 

The politeness theory on the other hand attempts to describe the contextual factors, and 

intentions and beliefs that lead a speaker to make particular choices. 

To be offered a job, Clare needs to convince her interviewer, Inès, that she is the best 

candidate to fill the position. However, how can she brag about her qualities and past 

achievements and still be polite? If she doesn’t, will she look inferior to other candidates 

with the same paper qualifications ...or will she look delightfully modest? In other words, 

how can a candidate use self-promotion and still make a good impression on their 

interviewer? This in turn triggers another set of questions. What is considered being polite 

in a job interview? What level of politeness is appropriate? How much should a candidate 

say? How can it be expressed? How do interviewers assess the politeness of the candidate 

they are interviewing? 

3.2.1. Face 

Face, says Goffman (1972), is the positive image that people claim for themselves by 

what they say or do in a social encounter. Face is not static. It can be lost or, on the contrary, 

enhanced. If someone’s face is maintained during an interaction, they will have no 

particular feelings about this. However, if their face is enhanced, they will feel good, 

whereas if they lose face, they will feel bad, since face is linked to people’s emotions. 

People, according to Goffman, are expected to have self-respect and defend their own face. 

In the same manner, they are expected to be considerate and protect the face of their 

interlocutors: 

A person’s performance of face-work, extended by his tacit agreement to help others 

perform theirs, represents his willingness to abide by the ground rules of social 

interaction. Here is the hallmark of his socialization as an interactant. (Goffman, 

1972:31) 

So, while the objective of an interaction is not to maintain face, it is a condition for the 

interaction to run smoothly. In social encounters, interactants are expected to show 

‘deference’ to each other while maintaining ‘demeanour’. ‘Deference’ is ‘‘that component 

of activity which functions as a symbolic means by which appreciation is regularly 

conveyed to a recipient of this recipient, or of something of which this recipient is taken as 

a symbol, extension or agent’’ (Goffman, 1972:56). Two ways to express deference are 

‘avoidance rituals’ and ‘presentational rituals’. Avoidance rituals refer to proscribed or 

taboo acts that participants must refrain from doing in order to keep at a distance from their 

interlocutor. Thus, in the course of her interview, Clare will try to avoid asking personal 

questions that could invade her interviewer’s privacy. Presentational rituals refer to acts 

whereby participants express their appreciation of, or concern about their interlocutor. 

Thus, Clare will endeavour to answer her interviewer’s questions accurately. She may also 

thank her for her time at the end of the interview. ‘Demeanour’ is ‘‘that element of the 

individual’s ceremonial behaviour typically conveyed through deportment, dress and 

bearing, which serves to express to those in his immediate presence that he is a person of 

certain desirable or undesirable qualities’’ (Goffman, 1972:77). Thus, Clare will come to

1154 


her interview appropriately dressed with regard to the position she is applying for, and will 

try to demonstrate poise through an adequate control of her gestures and emotions. 

Inès’s aim is to decide whether Clare is suitable for the position at stake. If, in the course 

of her interview, Clare does not show deference to Inès, she could be left with a bad 

impression of Clare, which would in turn impede Clare’s chances of being offered the job. 

In the same manner, Clare will jeopardise her chances if she does not maintain demeanour. 

3.2.2. Politeness appraisal and candidates’ enactment of their expertise 

What are the implications of showing deference and maintaining demeanour for 

candidates who need to display their professional experience to their interviewers? 

Interviewee Craig offered this insight: 

Researcher – And how polite do you think you have to be in an interview context? 

Craig – Well, I think I’d be polite to the extent of [...] not being defensive or 

confrontational but try to respond as fully as possible to the questions. 

Researcher – What do you mean by not being defensive? 

Craig – Not reacting against the questions by just say- giving one-word answers or 

not, you know, not answering very fully or just disagreeing and say nothing else, that 

sort of thing because it just would serve no purpose [...]. 

Craig’s comments bring to light different ways he showed deference to his interviewers 

in the course of his interview, while highlighting the motivations behind his choices. He 

brings forward the need for volubility (‘‘one-word answers’’ won’t do) and informativeness 

(he tried to ‘‘respond as fully as possible to the questions’’). This was motivated by his 

intention of ‘‘not being defensive or confrontational’’, ‘‘not reacting against the 

[interviewers’] questions [or] disagreeing’’. This is in line with positive-politeness 

strategies that serve to convey that interactants are cooperating in the activity they are 

involved in (Brown and Levinson, 1987:125). Aiming to satisfy his interviewers’ desire for 

information also points to Craig’s intention to fulfil their needs: as Brown and Levinson 

say, ‘‘S may satisfy H’s positive-face want (that S want H’s wants, to some degree), by 

actually satisfying some of H’s wants. Hence we have the classic positive-politeness action 

of gift-giving, not only tangible gifts (which demonstrate that S knows some of H’s wants 

and wants them to be fulfilled), but human-relations wants such as [...] the wants to be 

liked, admired, cared about, understood, listened to, and so on’’ (Brown and Levinson, 

1987:129). 

4. Candidates’ negotiating of their expertise 

A popular writer, Jim Bright, author of the Australian and New Zealand edition of Job 

Hunting for Dummies (Bright, 2001), advises his readers that ‘‘talk is cheap, so don’t spare 

the words’’. He goes on: ‘‘Interviews exist so that you can sell your wares and the more 

talking you do (within reason), the more impressive you appear’’ (page 279). Indeed, it 

seems essential that candidates talk enough, so that they have a chance to convince their 

interviewer to offer them the job. Linguistic studies on job interviews (e.g. Adelswärd, 

1988; Gumperz, 1992, 1999; Kerekes, 2001; Scheuer, 2001) also point to the importance,


for the candidates, of elaborating on their answers. These studies show that successful 

candidates provide more information about their professional experience than their 

unsuccessful counterparts do. In Scheuer (2001)’s analysis of 20 authentic job interviews, 

none of the candidates with a small share of the talk was offered a job, and successful 

candidates produced almost twice as many turns of more than 10 words and more words inbetween 

their interviewers’ questions than unsuccessful candidates did. It is difficult to 

determine how much a candidate should talk, though. Stevens (1991), lists both ‘‘talking 

too much’’ and ‘‘talking too little’’ as reasons for failure (page 80). Scheuer’s data point at a 

minimum 42% share of the talk for successful candidates, although Adelswärd’s study 

shows a successful candidate whose share of talk is as small as 36%. Likewise, in the 

present study, the interviewers pointed out the importance of providing enough 

information, such as Inès did when discussing her impressions of another interviewee 

from the pilot study, Catherine: 

Je pensais qu’elle aurait parlé plus, et moi, moins, parce que finalement, c’est elle 

que tu vas employer donc tu veux la connaître. 

I would have thought that she’d talk more and me a bit less because in the end, it’s her 

that you’re going to employ so you want to get to know her. 

In contrast, Inès had the impression that interviewee Clare was a good communicator 

because she had developed her answers, thus providing a wealth of information: 

Elle m’a fait une très bonne impression parce qu’elle [...]répondait bien aux 

questions et surtout elle communiquait bien ce qu’elle avait à dire en parlant, elle 

développait chaque point. 

She made a very good impression on me because she [...] was answering the 

questions well and what’s more, she communicated well what she had to say when 

speaking, she was developing each point. 

More than simply providing a lot of information at the interviewer’s request though, 

volunteering information can make a good impression. The successful bricklayer in 

Gumperz (1992)’s study, for example, ‘‘volunteers the information that he has already 

worked professionally as a bricklayer’’ (page 311), whereas the unsuccessful electrician 

‘‘provides only minimal replies and does not volunteer any new information’’ (page 314). 

According to another interviewer from the pilot study, Isabelle, the volunteering or lack of 

volunteering of information also played a role in the interviewers’ impression of the 

candidates: 

Isabelle: C’est les informations qu’elle aurait dû donner dèsledépart [...] il faut lui 

retirer les informations petit à petit. 

Isabelle: That’s the information she should have given right from the start [...] you 

have to extract the information from her bit by bit. 

And Inès confirms this, saying: 

Inès: [il] fallait vraiment tirer-tirer-tirer pour en savoir plus, donc c’est frustrant 

dans la perspective de la personne qui essaie de communiquer avec elle. Il y a une 

frustration.

1156 

Inès: Trying to get more information is like getting blood from a stone. It’s frustrating 

for the person who is trying to communicate with her. It’s just frustrating. 

Note how the lexical items ‘‘retirer petit à petit’’ (‘‘extract bit by bit’’) and ‘‘fallait 

vraiment tirer-tirer-tirer’’ (lit.: ‘‘one had to drag-drag-drag’’, i.e. ‘‘like getting blood from a 

stone’’) point to a major effort on the part of the interviewer; similarly, the repeated 

references to her ‘‘frustration’’ highlight Inès’s dissatisfaction. On the other hand: 

Inès: C’est idéal je crois, dans cette situation d’interview, quelqu’un qui, 

volontairement, te donne plus que ce que tu ... enfin te conduit vraiment pas à 

pas là où tu veux aller sans que tu aies à le demander de façon étendue ou plus 

précise. 

Inès: I think it’s great, in this interview situation, when someone willingly gives you 

more than you ...well, they take you where you want to go, every step of the way, 

without you having to ask them extensively or more precisely. 

Also, Adelswärd (1988:88–89) pointed to a link between the candidates’ specificity 

about their professional plans and the successful outcome of the interview. Thus, 

explicitness plays a role in the interviewers’ impression of candidates. Of course, 

volunteering ample information is useless or even damaging if this information is 

irrelevant, as popular literature points out: ‘‘Try to say more than ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but don’t 

ramble on with long, possibly irrelevant answers’’ (Burns, 1999:149). 

Candidates can also highlight their professional competence through their use of 

technical language, provided they use the terms appropriately. 

The candidates who successfully negotiate their expertise then volunteer sufficient 

information, give information that is both explicit and relevant, and use appropriate 

technical terms. These features are explored in the following sections with the 

corresponding interviewers’ impressions, as outlined in their follow-up interviews. 

Furthermore, since meaning is jointly constructed by the interviewers and the candidates in 

the course of their interview, another factor of interest concerns the interviewers’ influence 

on the information that is presented to them by the candidates. 

For comparability, excerpts from Craig’s and Clothilde’s interviews are used, since 

these two candidates were competing against each other for the same position. However, 

the features that are discussed played the same role in the other authentic interviews, as 

well as in the interviews in the pilot study. I would also like to stress that the candidates’ 

answers, as detailed below, do not call into question their competence in any way. Note also 

that the candidates I cite in this study are all academically outstanding. 

4.1. Volubility and informativeness 


Craig’s first answer described his teaching experience. 

Extract 1 – Craig 

8 Ingrid what kind of experience have you had of teaching small groups tea-ching in 

privately or at university what kind = =of


9 Craig = =yeah I’ve had a lot quite a lot of I mean I’ve had quite a lot of teaching 

experience like mainly um not at teaching language but at being basically um 

tutoring and lecturing um mainly in the area of performance studies and 

communication studies so I’ve done that um like I did um that for a semester at 

[name of institution] with two different two different classes and um but I also 

ran a course at [name of institution] as well so I was actually lecturing and 

coordinating an entire course and as well as that I did some um other tutoring 

like in [name of place] when I was doing my um MA and that also involves 

another other sort of teaching or labour activities like with a group of postgrads 

we coordinated a sort of a a workshop for secondary school teachers on sort of 

how to teach drama in high school so there’s quite a variety of different kinds of 

teaching experience and um and also presenting at conferences and that kind of 

thing so I think I’ve developed with that some you know communication skills 

and um that kind of thing which I think I could adapt um pretty well to the 

teaching so the teaching will be of small groups or 4 

I will examine Craig’s volubility and informativeness by looking at the amount of 

information that he provides to his interviewers, as well as his choice of processes and 

circumstantial adjuncts. 

A count of clauses can give a general indication of how much information candidates 

provide to their interviewers. Thus, Craig’s account of his teaching experience is 

relatively long with 14 clauses, as detailed in Table 2. Note that Craig himself decides 

that his answer is complete as he addresses a question to his interviewers about the size 

of the classes he will have to teach (clause xiv), thus handing over the floor to his 

interviewers. 

Not only does Craig have a long turn through his numerous declaratives, but also these 

clauses are full declaratives (that is stand-alone clauses without any element left out or 

ellipsed) for the main part (see Tables 2 and 3). I suggest that the use of full declaratives 

contributes to the interviewer’s impression of a candidate who volunteers ample 

information. 

Information on candidates’ amount of talk is quite general, and does not present the 

detail of what the candidates say and how they say it. Another aspect of Craig’s answer is 

his choice of ‘processes’, that is the types of ‘‘ ‘goings-on’ – happening, doing, sensing, 

meaning, and being and becoming’’ (Halliday, 1994:106). After an ‘attributing process’ 

(describing a possessive relationship) that wraps up his tutoring and lecturing experience 

(‘‘I’ve had quite a lot of teaching experience’’), Craig proceeds with a description that 

contains eight ‘material processes’ (or verbs of doing), e.g. ‘‘I ran a course’’, ‘‘I was 

lecturing and coordinating’’, ‘‘we coordinated a workshop’’ (see Table 4). Verbs of doing 

are used to represent people involved in various kinds of actions (Martin and Rose, 

2003:71–72). Therefore, they are useful tools for candidates attempting to describe their 

tasks (what they do or did) in their present or past jobs. Furthermore, throughout his 

4 

The names of the courses, candidates’ research interests and institutions were substituted or omitted to 

protect the anonymity of the participants.

1158 


Table 2 

Mood choices in Extract 1 

Mood Instance 

Declarative: incomplete (i) yeah I’ve had a lot quite a lot of 

Declarative: full (ii) I mean I’ve had quite a lot of teaching experience like mainly um 

not at teaching language but at being basically um tutoring and lecturing 

um mainly in the area of performance studies and communication studies 

Declarative: full (iii) so I’ve done that um 

Declarative: full (iv) like I did um that for a semester at [name of institution] with two 

different two different classes and um 

Declarative: full (v) but I also ran a course at [name of institution] as well 

Declarative: full (vi) so I was actually lecturing 

Declarative: full (vii) and coordinating an entire course 

Declarative: full (viii) and as well as that I did some um other tutoring like in [name of place] 

Declarative: full (ix) when I was doing my um MA 

Declarative: full (x) and that also involves another other sort of teaching or labour activities 

Declarative: full (xi) like with a group of postgrads we coordinated a sort of a a workshop for 

secondary school teachers on sort of how to teach drama in high school 

Declarative: full (xii) so there’s quite a variety of different kinds of teaching experience and 

um and also presenting at conferences and that kind of thing 

Declarative: full (xiii) so I think I’ve developed with that some you know communication 

skills and um that kind of thing [which I think I could adapt um pretty 

well to the teaching] 

Polar interrogative (xiv) so the teaching will be of small groups or 

answer, Craig emphasises his role in performing these actions, by clearly construing 

himself as the ‘Actor’ (or doer) 5 (see Table 4). 

Note how some of these processes, as well as other lexical items, belong to the field of 

teaching at a university (e.g. ‘‘tutoring’’, ‘‘lecturing’’, ‘‘coordinating’’). This contributed to 

Craig’s negotiating with his interviewers a common identity as a member of the academic 

community, since using in-group terminology can point at shared common ground (Brown 

and Levinson, 1987:107). As seen in Table 4, clause xiii puts forward a quality 

(communication skills) that is highly valued by teachers. Highlighting similar values and 

attitudes can also contribute to negotiating rapport. 

Another way to provide information is to use circumstantial adjuncts, that is adverbs or 

prepositional phrases that express where, when, how, why, etc., an event took place 

(Halliday, 1994:150–161; Eggins and Slade, 1997:81–84). As ‘‘elements which are 

additional, rather than essential, to the proposition’’, adjuncts ‘‘function to add extra 

information about the events expressed in the core of the proposition’’ (Eggins and Slade, 

1997:81). Adjuncts can thus provide candidates with a way to expand on the information 

they provide to their interviewers about where, when, under what conditions, who with, 

etc., they work/ed. This in turn could contribute to the interviewer’s impression of 

information that is voluntarily imparted (see Table 5). 

Craig uses nine such adjuncts to give information on his workplace (e.g. ‘‘I also ran a 

course at [name of institution]’’) and speciality (‘‘in the area of performance studies and 

communication studies’’), to specify how long he worked for (e.g. ‘‘for a semester’’), the 

5 See Extract 3 for a different approach.


Table 3 

Summary of mood choices in Extract 1 

Mood Number of instances 

Declaratives 13 

Full 12 (92%) 

Incomplete 1 (8%) 

people he worked with (e.g. ‘‘with a group of postgrads’’), the beneficiaries of his 

instruction (e.g. ‘‘for secondary school teachers’’) and purpose (e.g. ‘‘on sort of how to 

teach drama in high school’’), as detailed in Table 5. 

Adelswärd (1988:78) discussed the applicant’s need for ‘explicit argumentation’, based 

on the premise that ‘‘demonstrating an ability or trait has more argumentative power than 

simply stating it’’. This is consistent with popular literature: ‘‘Never claim a skill without 

illustrating how you used it’’ (Stevens, 1991:79). Circumstantial adjuncts can contribute to 

fulfilling this function. If Craig says ‘‘I have a lot of teaching experience’’, it does not tell 

his interviewers much about his ability to teach. On the other hand, by supporting his 

assertion with details about what, where, how long for he taught, Craig explicitly supports 

his claim with ‘hard facts’. He also demonstrates that he can display his expertise in a 

convincing way. 

Craig’s answer, with its numerous clauses, material processes and circumstantial 

adjuncts, provided his interviewers with a wealth of information about what he did 

as far as teaching goes. This contributed to conveying a good impression to his 

interviewers: 

Table 4 

Choice of processes in Extract 1 

Process Instance 

Attributing (i) yeah I’ve had a lot quite a lot of 

Attributing (ii) I mean I’ve had quite a lot of teaching experience like mainly um not at teaching 

language but at being basically um tutoring and lecturing um mainly in the area 

of performance studies and communication studies 

Material (iii) so I’ve done that um 

Material (iv) like I did um that for a semester at [name of institution] with two different 

two different classes and um 

Material (v) but I also ran a course at [name of institution] as well 

Material (vi) so I was actually lecturing 

Material (vii) and coordinating an entire course 

Material (viii) and as well as that I did some um other tutoring like in [name of place] 

Material (ix) when I was doing my um MA 

Identifying (x) and that also involves another other sort of teaching or labour activities 

Material (xi) like with a group of postgrads we coordinated a sort of a a workshop for 

secondary school teachers on sort of how to teach drama in high school 

Existential (xii) so there’s quite a variety of different kinds of teaching experience and um and 

also presenting at conferences and that kind of thing 

Material (xiii) so I think I’ve developed with that some you know communication skills and 

um that kind of thing which I think I could adapt um pretty well to the teaching

1160 


Table 5 

Choice of circumstantial adjuncts in Extract 1 

Instance Category 

1 mainly in the area of performance studies and 

communication studies 

Location place – where? 

2 for a semester 

Extent: duration – how long? 

3 at [name of institution] 


4 with two different two different classes 

Accompaniment: comitation – who with? 

5 at [name of institution] 


6 in [name of place] 


7 with a group of postgrads 

Accompaniment: comitation – who with? 

8 for secondary school teachers 

Cause: beneficiary – who for? 

9 on sort of how to teach drama in high school Cause: purpose – what for? 

Inès: Il répond de façon tout à fait pertinente et directe à la question. Il tourne pas 

autour du pot. [...]Etilrépond à la question finalement de façon tout à fait directe et 

précise en faisant ...en redisant bien tout ce qu’il a fait au niveau de l’enseignement. 

[...] Oui, ce qui est bien là [...] c’est le détail, c’est-à-dire le fait qu’il nous dit ce 

qu’il a fait, quelle année, où il a fait ça ... donc c’est vraiment des réponses 

satisfaisantes au niveau de ... tu vois, c’est complet, quoi. 

Inès: He answers the question in a very relevant and direct way. He’s not beating 

about the bush. [...] In short, he answers the question in a very precise and direct 

manner by doing ...by reiterating everything he’s done as far as teaching goes. [...] 

Yes, what’s good here [...] is the detail, the fact that he tells us what he did, in what 

year, where he did it ...so they’re really satisfactory answers as far as ...yeah, well, 

it’s comprehensive. 

Inès specifically links part of her good impression of Craig to his use of material 

processes (‘‘he tells us what he did’’) and circumstantial adjuncts (‘‘in what year, where he 

did it’’). Inès’s comments also point at other positive aspects of Craig’s account: its 

directness and relevance (‘‘in a very relevant and direct way’’, ‘‘not beating about the 

bush’’, ‘‘in a ...direct manner’’), and its completeness (‘‘very precise’’, ‘‘everything he’s 

done as far as teaching goes’’, ‘‘detail’’, ‘‘comprehensive’’). Note also the lexical item ‘‘en 

redisant’’ (‘‘reiterating’’), which suggests that the interviewers were already familiar with 

this information. 

Taking face-work into account, Craig’s detailed and comprehensive answer showed his 

appreciation of and deference to his interviewers as he did his best to fulfil their 

expectations of him; his full answer lessened the imposition on them to request further 

information, as an incomplete answer would have required another question. Then, it 

showed that Craig could be trusted to answer the questions he was asked adequately. Thus, 

Craig protected his interviewers’ face, while enhancing his own. This contributed to a 

smooth interaction; it also had a positive impact on the overall impression that Craig made 

on his interviewers: 

Ingrid: Clearly he is a man of some maturity and a pleasant personality. 

Researcher: What in particular gave you that impression?

Ingrid: I suppose it would be expression [...], wanting to answer our questions 

because after all some people seem to view interviews as a kind of test, they’re 

resistant, they’re on the defensive. Strange things happen in interviews. Some people 

think you don’t have the right to interview them. Clearly, there is a manner to adopt if 

you’re being interviewed and you have to play the game to some extent and he played 

the game well and I’ll draw that suggests a certain social skill, you know, I mean, 

getting on with people is playing the social game and he played that game in the 

interview well and he gave a good impression and one assumes therefore he will do 

that in other circumstances, whether he thought a great deal about impressing us or 

just thought that it was something he had to do. 

These comments also illustrate how Craig’s interviewer drew implications from the 

way he answered the questions he was asked, as to how he would behave in other 

occasions. 

4.2. Lack of informativeness 


I will now contrast Craig’s description of his teaching experience with Clothilde’s. 

Extract 2 – Clothilde 

53 Ingrid well perhaps we might start in English and just ask you um because part 

of the post obviously is teaching 

54 Clothilde mhmm 

55 Ingrid teaching um English what kind of experience have you had in that area 

until now 

56 Clothilde well I’ve tutored in English on a a casual basis um on and off over the 

years I’m tutoring this year in the Information & Communication 

course which is not actually a strict thing within with the English 

department but that’s at this university but in the past I’ve had private 

students tutoring HSC and first year = =English but not x= = 

57 Ingrid = =what is the Information= = & Communication course and what do 

you do do you have the use of a computer or is that oversimplifying 

things 

Clothilde’s answer is shorter than Craig’s (five clauses only; see Table 6), however, she 

is interrupted by Ingrid who takes over with a question introducing a new topic (turn 57). 

Clothilde uses three material processes that all refer to her tutoring experience, so there is 

less variety than in Craig’s answer, which exemplified other sorts of experience. In 

addition, an attributing process contributes here, by describing another kind of teaching 

experience (‘‘I’ve had private students’’). 

Clothilde uses eight circumstantial adjuncts (about as many as does Craig) to provide 

extra information about her teaching experience. However, there is less variety in her 

choice of adjuncts, as most of them describe where and when she has been teaching (see 

Table 7). The consequence is that the information she provides about her professional

1162 


Table 6 

Choice of processes in Extract 2 

Process Instance 

Material (i) well I’ve tutored in English on a a casual basis um on and off over the years 

Material (ii) I’m tutoring this year in the Information & Communication course which is not 

actually a strict thing within with the English department 

Attributing (iii) but that’s at this university 

Attributing (iv) but in the past I’ve had private students 

Material (v) tutoring HSC and first year English but not xxx 

experience is more restricted. Moreover, while Clothilde uses some adjuncts that are quite 

specific (e.g. ‘‘in English’’, ‘‘on a casual basis’’, ‘‘this year’’, ‘‘in the Information & 

Communication course’’, ‘‘at this university’’), some other adjuncts are quite vague (e.g. 

‘‘on and off over the years’’, ‘‘in the past’’). Instead of using ‘‘on and off over the years’’, an 

adjunct ‘‘indefinite in extent’’ (Halliday, 1994:152–153), Clothilde could have been more 

precise, and said, e.g. ‘‘in 1999, 2001 and 2003’’ (an adjunct ‘‘definite in extent’’). 

Likewise, instead of using ‘‘in the past’’ (an adjunct ‘‘relative to the ‘here-&-now’ ’’; 

Halliday, 1994:153), Clothilde could have used an ‘‘absolute adjunct’’ such as ‘‘in 2000’’. 

Thus, Clothilde’s circumstantial adjuncts did not provide as explicit information about her 

professional experience as they could have. 

Last, although Clothilde’s choice of lexicon is relevant to the field of teaching (e.g. 

‘‘tutored in English’’, ‘‘private students’’, ‘‘tutoring HSC and first year English’’), it is not 

entirely relevant to the question she was asked (e.g. ‘‘I’m tutoring this year in the 

Information & Communication course’’). 

In Clothilde’s follow-up interview, Ingrid insisted on the need for candidates to 

provide detailed information about their experience, even if it is already stated in their 

application: 

Lots of people, they think, people coming for interviews think that they don’t need to 

tell you what’s already in their CVor their lettre de motivation [cover letter], whereas 

if you’ve seen lots of people for a start, you don’t necessarily remember the detail 

when they’re in front of you, and secondly, the interviewers have a chance to 

highlight what is in your CV but is useful to you. 

Table 7 

Choice of circumstantial adjuncts in Extract 2 

Instance Category 

1 in English Abstract location: place – where? 

2 on a casual basis Manner: means – how? 

3 on and off over the years Extent: frequency – how often? 

4 this year Location: time – when? 

5 in the Information & Communication course Abstract location: place – where? 

6 within with the English department Location: place – where? 

7 at this university Location: place – where? 

8 in the past Location: time – when?

Ingrid also stressed the need to focus on the information that is asked in the question: 

She [Clothilde] only talked about this [the Information & Communication course] 

but then, that’s her own problem in a sense I mean, she should be focusing more on 

English, shouldn’t she? 

And later on: 

She’s not perhaps [...] as focused as she could be. She could certainly be using this 

interview in a quite different way. Maybe she’s not sure what we’re looking for. 

Ingrid’s comments suggest that Clothilde should have been more proactive in her 

approach to her interview, that is, to fulfil her interviewers’ expectations of hearing detailed 

information about her professional experience, she should have either provided more 

details about her experience of teaching English, or directed the conversation again onto 

this experience. The comments also highlight the lack of interactional assistance on the part 

of her interviewers, as Clothilde struggles to find out the ‘‘winning moves’’ (Adelswärd, 

1988:103). In fact, Clothilde was led to talk about the Information & Communication 

course by her interviewer (turn 57 in Extract 2), in spite of Ingrid’s good intentions (see 

Ingrid’s earlier comments: ‘‘the interviewers have a chance to highlight what is in your CV 

but is useful to you’’). This is probably why literature on job interviews suggests that ‘‘your 

task is to help the interviewer focus on those areas in which your skills are relevant to the 

vacancy’’ (Stevens, 1991:77). 

On the other hand, candidates could be prompted to volunteer extra information by their 

interviewers’ formulations, that is the ‘‘turns, where the interviewer explicitly rephrases, 

interprets, sums up or draws a conclusion from what the applicant has just said in the 

immediately preceding turn or turns’’ (Adelswärd, 1988:106). There is one such 

formulation in each of Craig’s and Clothilde’s interviews; each time, the formulations 

prompted the candidate to add new information. Because formulations express the 

interviewer’s view of what candidates just said, such formulations allow candidates to 

confirm or refute this interpretation: ‘‘the interviewers’ reactions to the applicant’s 

contributions to the interaction are highly important to implicit arguing – or impression 

management – as they can help the applicant to settle on the probable interpretation of what 

she has just said’’ (Adelswärd, 1988:106). Thus, formulations are useful to candidates in 

the management of their interviewer’s impressions of them. This highlights how 

interviewers’ interviewing styles can impact on candidates’ answers and presentation of 

their selves. 

4.3. Vagueness 


Inès’s earlier comments about Craig’s account of his teaching experience show that the 

explicitness of his account played a part in her positive impression of him. Likewise, 

preciseness or, on the contrary, vagueness in the language itself affected the interviewers’ 

perception of the candidates’ expertise. 

Candidates were not always specific when describing their work practices. They 

occasionally used vague language, as when Craig presented his ideas for promoting 

conversation in his language classes:

1164 


Craig um well I mean I think one one I mean one thing would be looking at um 

finding interesting material that’s you know that’s current like things you know 

that’s sort of maybe a kind of like news stories or things out of magazines or or 

other kinds of stuff that the students would be able to sort of um would be able 

to relate to 

The underlined lexical items such as ‘things’, ‘like’, ‘sort of’ or ‘other kinds of stuff’ 

connote vagueness (Eggins and Slade, 1997:137). In the SFL system of Appraisal, it is said 

that such lexical items allow a semantic softening (White, n.d.), as they make ‘‘something 

that is inherently non-gradable gradable’’ (Martin and Rose, 2003:41) (for further 

descriptions, see Eggins and Slade (1997:133–137), Martin and Rose (2003:37–43), White 

(n.d.)). 

Unlike his earlier description of his teaching experience (Extract 1), Craig’s account in 

Extract 3 of how he could promote students’ participation in class is quite vague. 

Extract 3 – Craig 

14 Ingrid how what kind of problems do you foresee how does one make a co- you 

know because it is just conversation classes usually it is left up to you to 

really find theme subjects probably wha- how does one make such classes 

talk what ideas have you got for encouraging English conversation 

15 Craig um well I mean I think one one I mean one thing would be looking at 

um finding interesting material that’s you know that’s current like things 

you know that’s sort of maybe a kind of like news stories or things out of 

magazines or or other kinds of stuff that the students would be able to 

sort of um would be able to relate to or you know if there are sort of 

things that are happening you know perhaps you know things that are 

happening in England or or whatever or even just things that are 

happening that are you know that that the students are interested in to 

you know to sort of xx conversation and um yeah and to also find you 

know to find you know sort of basically to to also you know talk to the 

students and find out what kind of things you know what kind of things 

they’re interes- interested in and to bring what sort of materials that 

would reflect that like you know maybe um also you know using things 

like you know videos or whatever that’s appropriate and you know and 

how how they will set up the 

Craig had not expected this question: 

I didn’t expect such a practical question, like I didn’t have it planned out in advance 

what I would do, so I was just having to make it up on the spot. 

He also commented: 

There’s a lot of ‘‘sort of’’, ‘‘maybe’’, ‘‘like’’, you know, qualifying things that are sort 

of better indicate not being certain of what to say. 

This contributes to explain the 23 items of softened focus in his answer (see Table 8).


Table 8 

Items of softened focus in Extract 3 

Items Number of instances 

thing/s 9 

sort of 6 

like 4 

or whatever 2 

a kind of 1 

or other kinds of stuff 1 

Note that Craig did use items of softened focus also in the description of his 

experience (Extract 1): ‘‘like’’ four times, ‘‘sort of’’ twice, ‘‘and that kind of thing’’ 

twice. However, this attracted no comments on the part of his interviewers, probably 

because these expressions were balanced by the wealth of information that was provided 

otherwise. 

These numerous instances of vague language contributed to conveying an impression of 

approximation in the language, and consequently in the content. This impression was 

reinforced by eight items of modalisation (e.g. ‘‘I think’’, ‘‘would’’, ‘‘maybe’’, ‘‘perhaps’’). 

Moreover, Craig’s repeated use (15 times) of the interpersonal expression ‘‘you know’’ 

attracted negative comments on the part of Ingrid: 

He does use ‘‘you know’’ an awful lot. I’m not that keen on that. Somebody who 

keeps using a prop like that, I think, is not so good. 

Another aspect contributing to the impression of vagueness is the lack of a clear ‘Actor’ 

doing things and acting processes. This is due to Craig’s use of numerous non-finite clauses 

(dependent infinitive or gerund clauses with no subject) (see Table 9). 

Table 9 

Clauses in Extract 3 

Clause Instance 

(i) um well I mean I think one one I mean one thing would be looking at um finding interesting 

material [[that’s you know that’s current]] like things you know [[that’s sort of maybe a kind 

of like news stories or things out of magazines or or other kinds of stuff [[that the students 

would be able to sort of um would be able to relate to]]]] 

(ii) or you know if there are sort of things [[that are happening]] you know perhaps you know 

things [[that are happening in England or or whatever]] or even just things [[that are happening]] 

[[that are]] you know [[that that the students are interested in]] 

(iii) to you know to sort of xx conversation 

(iv) and um yeah and to also find you know to find you know sort of basically to to 

(v) also you know talk to the students 

(vi) and find out what kind of things you know what kind of things [[they’re interes- interested in]] 

(vii) and to bring what sort of materials [[that would reflect that]] 

(viii) like you know maybe um also you know using things like you know videos or whatever 

[[that’s appropriate]] 

(ix) and you know and how how they will set up the 

The processes in the non-finite clauses are underlined, highlighting how Craig is missing as an Actor.

1166 


Even though we can easily infer that Craig is, for example, the one ‘‘looking at [and] 

finding interesting material’’ or who plans ‘‘to find out what kind of things they [the 

students]’re interested in’’, this is not spelled out in the answer. Craig is ‘‘not so much 

excluded as de-emphasised, pushed into the background’’ (Leeuwen, 1996:39). Of course, 

this ‘backgrounding’ may have been encouraged by Ingrid, since she used two different 

Subjects in her question (‘‘you’’ and ‘‘one’’), and even though she stressed ‘‘you’’ in 

‘‘usually it is left up to you to really find theme subjects’’, she also asked ‘‘how does one 

make such classes talk’’. This may explain why Craig avoided asserting himself as Subject 

in most clauses, by having processes downranked to ‘Identifiers’ (e.g. ‘‘one thing would be 

looking at um finding interesting material’’, rather than ‘‘I would look at um find 

interesting material’’). The only participants that are represented are the students. 

However, they are downgraded as mere ‘Behavers’ (as engaged in a psychological 

behaviour), as well as downranked in embedded clauses that qualify material they could 

relate to or events they could be interested in. Thus, neither Craig nor his would-be students 

hold a predominant role in this answer – in contrast, Craig’s description of his experience 

(Extract 1) contained 10 ‘I’ Subjects, foregrounding Craig as the ‘doer’. Thus, quite a few 

elements contributed to conveying uncertainty to his interviewers: the numerous items of 

softened focus and modal expressions, and the backgrounding of Craig as a ‘doer’, while 

students were relegated to the role of Qualifiers in embedded clauses. 

Craig also conveyed little tangible information on how he might encourage 

participation, as underlined by Ingrid: 

Also, he hasn’t really said very much. He finds things that they [the students]’re 

interested in, it’s a bit vague, isn’t it, without examples. 

Let us compare Craig’s answer with Clothilde’s answer to the same question. 

Extract 4 – Clothilde 

63 Ingrid do you find you can make them make them make them (Clothilde: 

laugh) in xx encourage them to speak 

64 Clothilde um yeah I think so they’re all reading their bits and and a lot of people 

well we’ve had two tutorials so far most most of the science students are 

really enrolled in it as a pre-requisite for something else so yes yes it it 

it’s a bit difficult but I think they are beginning to talk a bit more and you 

know people stay after the tutorial for an hour talking about next week’s 

presentation so I think they begin to understand a bit more what the 

course is about and also what giving a presentation is about and stand up 

in front of a group of people and talking about what’s going on and 

demonstrate a computer model or something ummm 

Clothilde’s answer is about as long as Craig’s with 10 clauses (see Table 10). 

Clothilde’s answer revolves around her students, presented as ‘Actors’ or ‘doers’ (who 

are ‘‘all reading their bits’’ or ‘‘beginning to talk a bit more’’), or ‘Sensers’ (who ‘‘begin to 

understand a bit more’’). So Clothilde presents people who are clearly doing things. 

Moreover, Clothilde’s language is much more precise than Craig’s, with only one item of 

softened focus (‘‘or something’’, clause x), although there are three items of modalisation

(‘‘I think’’). What Clothilde is doing, though, is demonstrating her own ability to teach 

through an exemplification of her students’ achievements (see Table 11). 

By expressing positive judgements about her students, Clothilde indirectly shows her 

teaching skills. This contributed to conveying a good impression on Inès and establishing a 

common identity as an experienced teacher: 

[il] y a aussi une espèce de complicité, je dirais, avec nous, parce que, ce qu’elle est 

en train de nous dire, c’est qu’au fond, elle a une expérience d’enseignante, comme 

nous, tu vois c’est-à-dire finalement heu, d’un air de dire ‘je sais ce que c’est 

qu’enseigner’. 

There’s also some kind of complicity, I’d say, with us because what she’s telling us is 

that in fact she has a teaching experience, like us, you see, that is after all um like 

saying ‘I know what teaching is all about’. 

4.4. Specificity 


Table 10 

Clauses in Extract 4 

Clause Instance 

(i) um yeah I think so 

(ii) they’re all reading their bits 

(iii) and and a lot of people 

(iv) well we’ve had two tutorials so far 

(v) most most of the science students are really enrolled in it as a pre-requisite for something else 

(vi) so yes yes it it it’s a bit difficult 

(vii) but I think they are beginning to talk a bit more 

(viii) and you know people stay after the tutorial for an hour 

(ix) talking about next week’s presentation 

(x) so I think they begin to understand a bit more what the course is about and also 

what giving a presentation is about and stand up in front of a group of people and 

talking about what’s going on and demonstrate a computer model or something 

The various processes are underlined. 

Craig and Clothilde were also asked about their projects while in France. Since they 

were both competent tutors, their answer to this question actually differentiated them. 

While discussing their projects, they highlighted their interest in the host institution in 

France, in specific research areas, etc. Expressions of interest concerned the host university 

in France (e.g. ‘‘des cours à à [nom de l’institution] qui qui m’intéressaient’’ (‘‘classes at at 

[name of institution] that that I was interested in’’)), the candidates’ or other researchers’ 

Table 11 

Tokens of judgement in Extract 4 

they’re all reading their bits 

they are beginning to talk a bit more 

people stay after the tutorial for an hour talking about next week’s presentation 

they begin to understand a bit more what the course is about 

they begin to understand a bit more [...] what giving a presentation is about and stand up in front of a group 

of people and talking about what’s going on and demonstrate a computer model or something

1168 


research areas (e.g. ‘‘je m’intéresse à le [sic] texte matériel plutôt qu’au texte abstrait 6 ’’ 

(‘‘I’m interested in material texts more than abstract ones’’), ‘‘il a d’intérêts [sic] de 

recherche qui sont com- qui sont semblables à à moi [sic]’’ (‘‘he’s got com- um similar 

research interests as I’’)) or research they wanted to complete while in France (e.g. ‘‘une 

autre raison pour laquelle je suis intéressée heu dans [sic] cet échange est qu’il y a un 

certain nombre des [sic] archives que je voudrais voir à Paris’’) (‘‘another reason I’m 

interested um in this exchange is that there’s a few archives that I’d like to see in Paris’’). 

More than the mere expression of their interest or projects, though, the way the 

candidates expressed them influenced their interviewers’ impression. Craig expressed his 

interest in quite a different way from Clothilde. For instance, he mentioned specific 

seminars that he wanted to attend: 

22 Craig [...] j’ai assis- assisté à des séminaires à [sic] le Collège International 

de Philosophie et l’École Normale Supérieure des [sic] autres endroits 

et je voudrais bien continuer à certaines [sic] de ces séminaires 

22 Craig [...] I I went to some seminars at the Collège International de 

Philosophie and the École Normale Supérieure [and] other places 

and I would like to keep going to some of these seminars 

Note how Craig links past activities and future projects, connecting the irrealis affect ‘‘je 

voudrais’’ (‘‘I would like’’) with the process ‘‘continuer’’ (‘‘keep going’’) – a way to show 

that: (1) he has specific projects and (2) he has the capacity to understand seminars held in 

French since he has already attended some. 

Clothilde, on the other hand, loosely expressed her wish to attend doctoral seminars 

while in France: 

85 Clothilde [...] et aussi j’aimerais bien assister à des à des séminaires doctorals 

[sic] ou je je sais pas exactement heu les détails de l’échange si heu si si 

le l’étudiant de Sydney a le droit de assister à ces séminaires mais je 

m’intéresse beaucoup à les [sic] séminaires surtout les séminaires heu 

théoriques hm donc 

85 Clothilde [...] and I’d like to go to to some doctoral seminars or I I don’t exactly 

know the details of the exchange if if a Sydney student is allowed to go 

to these seminars but I’m really interested in the seminars especially um 

the theoretical seminars hmm so 

Clothilde’s lack of precision did not make such a good impression on Inès: 

Inès: Là, oui, là elle hésite aussi un peu plus. En fait, de façon générale, cette partielà, 

c’est la partie un peu plus hésitante, tu vois. Quand elle pose la question de savoir 

si elle peut assister, etc., c’est vrai que dans les termes de l’annonce, c’était très 

6 Here and elsewhere, grammatical erors in the orginal are signalled by adding ‘sic’.


vague, mais à la limite, elle aurait pu téléphoner à Ingrid, en savoir plus, elle aurait 

pu avoir ces renseignements, tu vois. 

Researcher: Tu penses qu’elle aurait dû se renseigner avant l’interview plutôt? 

Inès: Peut-être, disons, ça aurait fait un petit plus, j’ai envie de dire, quand la 

personne est au courant, tu vois, ça fait toujours un petit plus. Là, je pense que ça 

aurait été assez facile pour elle de découvrir que c’était tout à fait possible d’assister 

aux séminaires et que même, on les encourageait à faire ça, tu vois, donc, bon, c’était 

juste un détail mais, bon, c’est vrai que ça finit par compter, quoi. [...]Etlàaussi, 

elle est pas au courant du détail. Bon, c’est vrai que c’est pas facile, mais là aussi tu 

peux aller sur internet voir les sites, les programmes, tu vois, des cours donc quand 

elle parlait des séminaires, etc., c’était assez général, un peu comme sa présentation, 

tu vois, au début, là, quand elle parlait de choses un peu générales, comme le sujet de 

sa thèse, et donc, ça manquait, oui ça manquait un petit peu de, tu vois, 

renseignements, de personnes qui xx, tu vois, de ouais, c’est ça, ça fait pas la 

personne qui s’est renseignée, enfin tu vois, bon. 

Inès: There, well, there she hesitates a bit more as well. In fact, this bit in particular, is 

where she hesitates a little more. When she asks the question about knowing whether 

or not she can go to the seminars etc., sure, it is rather unclear in the ad, but, honestly, 

she could have called Ingrid and found out more about it, she could have got the 

information, you know. 

Researcher: You think she should have found that out before the interview, then? 

Inès: Maybe, in any case it would have given her a little edge, I mean, when the 

person is prepared, you know, it always gives a little edge. In this case, I think it 

would have been pretty easy for her to find out that it’s quite possible to go to the 

seminars and that they even encourage the students to do that, you know, so, OK, it’s 

a small thing but, well, it’s the kind of thing that does count in the end. [...] And here 

again, she hasn’t read the fine print. I know it’s not easy, but again, you can go on the 

net and look up the sites, the programs, the courses, you know, so when she talked 

about the seminars etc., it was pretty general, a bit like her talk, you know, at the start 

when she was talking about more general things, like the topic of her dissertation, she 

was a bit vague on details, on people who xx, you know, that’s it, she doesn’t come on 

like somebody who is well-informed, you see what I mean? 

So in the end, Clothilde’s lack of specificity was translated by the interviewers as a lack 

of interest in the position. Moreover, Craig linked his interests to the host university 

specifically – indeed, he is helped in this respect by his past experience at this university 

that gave him insight for demonstrating how fruitful for his research a stay in France would 

be. See for example: ‘‘il y a une professeuse [sic] là-bas (name) qui a a aussi un une [sic] 

intérêt dans le [sic] heu littérature albanais [sic] et et aussi la philosophie Deleuze les [sic] 

choses comme ça’’ (‘‘there’s a female teacher there (name) who’s interested in um 

Albanian writings and and in Deleuze’s philosophy things like that’’), ‘‘j’ai pas parlé des 

Deleuziens mais j’ai j’ai rencontré heu plusieurs heu professeurs qui qui ont cet intérêt’’ 

(‘‘I haven’t talked about the Deleuzians but I’ve I’ve met several um teachers who who are 

interested in him’’).

1170 

In the same manner, Craig was quite specific in his evaluations of the benefits of this 

position for his research (e.g. ‘‘des très bons contacts’’, ‘‘some really good contacts’’; ‘‘un 

très trèsbon heu endroit pour moi’’, ‘‘a really, really good um place for me’’; ‘‘très bon 

pour heu ma propre recherche’’, ‘‘really good for um my own research’’; ‘‘that’s the period 

when being in France would be really helpful’’). Craig’s interest was also underlined by his 

non-verbal communication: 

Inès: Et là, il se dit, ‘voilà, c’est là qu’il faut que j’impressionne, c’est là qu’il faut 

que je vende mon bifteck’, et je sens que, tu vois, il s’anime parce qu’il sait que çava 

avoir bon effet, tu vois, il dit ‘cet endroit pour moi’. Là il est en train d’essayer de se 

vendre, là, àmon avis. 

Inès: And then he realises ‘okay, this is where I’ve got to make a good impression. 

This is where I’ve got to make my pitch’ and you know, I can see that he’s getting 

more excited because he knows that it’s getting results, you see, he says ‘this place 

for me’. It’s at this point that he’s really trying to sell himself, in my opinion. 

Thus, Craig’s intention was to be specific in order to make his arguments more effective, 

and underline why he should be selected for the position rather than Clothilde. 

Researcher: What impression did you try to convey to your interviewers? 

Craig: Just that I had very different reasons why I wanted to get this particular 

exchange at that particular university and that, you know, that I would do what I 

would need to do, you know, constantly and that I was very, you know, that I was 

definitely very interested. 

Researcher: How did you try to show that you were very interested? 

Craig: I just tried to talk confidently about what, you know, what I could do there and 

the contacts that I had already made and how I could, you know, build on that sort of 

thing. 

This strategy paid off: 

Ingrid: What was impressive about it [Craig’s application] was the extent to which he 

had found out about [name of university] already, the extent towhich he’d already made 

contacts, the fact that he knew the kind of interests, the research interests of the people 

there that he had made contact with andalsothat he hadbeen in [name of university city] 

very recently and that he needed to go back to do his research, that there was a concrete 

bibliographic and other work that he could do there, so it was impressive because of its 

detailed relationship to his project very specifically to [name of university]. He didn’t 

say‘I’d lovetogoto[name ofuniversitycity]becausethereare lots ofgood libraries’,he 

said very specifically why he needed to go to [name of university]. 

Thus, Craig’s presentation was more effective because he demonstrated his interest, 

rather than just asserting it (see Adelswärd, 1988:91). 

4.5. Technical language 


In Gumperz’s (1992) analysis of two interviews for admission to a job-training course, 

one candidate who used lay rather than technical lexis for describing his work experience to


his interviewers (who were also the trainers) conveyed the impression that he was not 

knowledgeable enough in his field. Ironically, since a layman’s answer should have 

satisfied his interviewers of his lack of knowledge and need for the course, the answers 

highlighted his lack of expertise and contributed to disqualify him for the training course. 

Whether the candidates and the interviewers share the same expertise is important: in 

Kerekes’s (2001) study of job interviews in a national employment agency offering 

placements in light industrial and clerical work, the candidates for light industrial positions 

who elaborated on their technical expertise, such as their ability to use specific types of 

machinery, did not bond with the agency staffing supervisors conducting the job 

interviews, as the latter were no experts in these areas. So the successful use of technical 

language, because it relates to the interactants’ assumed knowledge, usually requires that 

the candidates and their interviewers share a similar experience of the field. Otherwise such 

language use may have the opposite effect, and divide instead of bond. In the present study, 

all the interviewers are experts in the candidates’ field of activity, that is, there is a match 

between the interviewers’ and the candidates’ interests. Therefore, technical wording could 

contribute to highlighting the candidates’ expertise. 

Technical language refers to lexical items that have a limited circulation and are only 

accessible to those with some knowledge of the field. As such, technical language allows 

participants in an interaction to enact degrees of intimacy and affiliation (Eggins and Slade, 

1997). This is why this is a useful resource for candidates trying to negotiate their expertise 

and show they belong as competent professionals. 

In his interview, Craig explicitly underlined his ability to carry out his research in 

French: ‘‘from having been in that environment already you know I feel like I could you 

know and having gone to seminars and having made contacts with people often which you 

know took place in French I feel you know I would I would be able to you know do that you 

know do that very well and also be able to follow along and understand’’. Craig also 

indirectly demonstrated his ability by using technical wording. This not only highlighted 

his ability to do his research in a French context, but also backed up his claims: 

Inès: En français, ce qui m’a frappée, c’était le fait de son utilisation du vocabulaire, 

déjà, delaméthodologie et de la recherche en français, ce qui était une preuve 

supplémentaire qu’il avait fait, finalement, ce qu’il nous disait, tu vois, ‘séminaire’, 

‘archival’, enfin, tu vois, ‘l’institut de philosophie’ et tout, alors là, il a fait la tournée 

(rire), la tournée des grands ducs. 

Inès: What struck me, with his French, was the fact that he already was using the 

vocabulary of methodology and research in French, which was additional proof that 

he’d actually done what he told us he had, you know, ‘seminar’, ‘archival’, like, you 

know, ‘Institute of Philosophy’ and all that, so there he gave us a tour (laughs) the 

grand tour. 

Clothilde, on the other hand, emphasised her lack of competence in French – even 

though her level of proficiency is more or less equivalent to Craig’s: ‘‘je voudrais améliorer 

mes connaissances de [sic] français et je voudrais pouvoir lire en français un peu mieux je 

suis assez confortable avec les textes français mais pour écrire en français surtout ça je 

trouve très difficile’’ (‘‘I’d like to improve my French and I’d like to be able to read French a 

bit better I’m OK with French texts but it’s writing in French that’s really hard for me’’).

1172 

She also showed a lack of familiarity with French words related to her research. For 

instance, she said ‘‘l’entre-guerre’’ for ‘‘l’entre-deux-guerres’’ (interwar period), made up 

the word ‘‘termination’’ and mispronounced the word ‘‘archivaux’’. This was all the more 

damaging, since these terms are related to her research topic: 

Inès: Je me souviens que j’ai un peu tiqué sur ‘archives’ parce que ...qu’elle disait 

[arkiv], parce que je me dis, sachant qu’elle allait parler de ça, elle aurait peut-être 

pu vérifier avec quelqu’un comment ... la prononciation pour éviter de refaire la 

faute plusieurs fois, surtout que c’est [...] vraiment son domaine de recherche, c’est 

les archives, donc c’est quand même bien de se renseigner avant pour savoir 

comment tu prononces le nom, surtout si tu travailles vraiment là-dessus, tu vois, et 

que tu veux aller en France, etc. Donc ça, ça m’avait fait un peu tiquer. 

Inès: I remember I winced a bit over ‘archives’ because ...she said [arkiv], because I 

thought, knowing that she was going to be talking about that, she could have checked 

with somebody how ...the pronunciation so that she didn’t say the wrong thing over 

and over, especially since it’s [...] actually her research area, the archives, so it’s not a 

bad idea to find out how to pronounce it beforehand, especially if it’s your area of work, 

you know, and you want to go to France, etc. So, that took me back a little bit. 

Inès’s comments further highlight the importance of preparing for the interview. 

5. Conclusion 


We have investigated how candidates tried to negotiate their expertise, and examined 

different features that influenced the interviewers’ impressions of them. A substantial 

number of full clauses in an answer, for instance gave the interviewer the impression of a 

candidate who was volunteering information. In the same manner, circumstantial adjuncts 

allowed candidates to add extra information – provided these adjuncts were specific 

enough to carry precise information. Material processes were useful for describing what 

candidates did or do at work. The candidates’ wording also played a role: lexis belonging to 

the same field as the lexis in the question helped keep the answer relevant, and technical 

wording contributed to demonstrating the candidates’ expertise. Of course, it is important 

that candidates elaborate on valid aspects of their candidacy, or they might convey the 

impression of ‘talking a lot for saying nothing’ (compare Grice (1975)’s maxim ‘Be 

relevant’), or miss on providing information that their interviewers were expecting. 

Operating across the turns rather than within the turns, we saw as well how interviewers 

could influence the content of candidates’ answers and, for instance by asking a new 

question, prompt them to change topics or, on the contrary, by reformulating the 

candidates’ answers, prompt them to volunteer new information. Since an interview is a 

joint interaction, it is logical indeed that the interviewer would influence what the candidate 

says in varied ways (and vice versa). 

The analysis also showed that the way candidates presented information to their 

interviewers was more important for negotiating their expertise and making a good 

impression on them than the information itself, as the candidates’ lexico-grammatical 

choices contributed much to the interviewers’ positive or negative impression of the

candidates’ answers, and therefore of the candidates themselves. Importantly, backing up the 

SFL analysis with the candidates’ and interviewers’ post-interview comments established a 

useful link between analysis of the lexico-grammar and impression management theory. 

The politeness approach also allowed the highlighting of the beliefs that motivated the 

candidates in their lexico-grammatical choices. For instance, the candidates’ volubility 

protected their interviewers’ face as it removed the need to request extra information. It 

also enhanced the candidates’ own face as they looked more proactive in their approach of 

the interview and reliable in a general way. 

Thus, in the search for an interpretation of the features that allowed candidates to 

negotiate their expertise, both the systemic approach and the theory of politeness proved to 

be useful tools for identifying key elements and interpreting the participants’ motivations. 

While candidates endeavoured to negotiate their expertise in their effort to bond with 

their interviewers as competent professionals, other tactics that candidates used to 

negotiate solidarity were likewise uncovered. In the course of their interview, candidates 

tried to behave like an insider (e.g. as a teacher or a researcher) or talk like one (e.g. by 

using technical language that highlighted in-knowledge and expertise). In doing so, they 

tried to negotiate a common identity with their interviewers. Similarly, they occasionally 

displayed values similar to their interviewers’ in an effort to negotiate rapport. 

Acknowledgements 

I am grateful to Jane Simpson and the anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on 

this paper. I would also like to thank Indigo Blue for her skilful translations of the French 

excerpts. 

Appendix A 

Transcription conventions: 

= = text = = Simultaneous speech 

= = text = = 

italics Stressed syllable or word 

text- Incomplete or cut-off word 

[text] Pronunciation of word 

(text) Back-channelling by a participant not holding the floor 

xxx Inaudible speech (1 ‘x’ per syllable) 

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