universidade federal de santa catarina pós-graduação em letras ...

68the discussion that follows because it shows how editors’ intuitions correspond to whatother scholars investigating the genre have to say.3.1 Interviews with book review editors3.1.1 ObjectivesThree journal editors were interviewed (each working in one of the selecteddisciplines for the study), with the objective of eliciting information on how BR editingand publishing occur and how expert members of these disciplinary communities seeBRs and reviewers.As already mentioned in Chapter 2, this ethnographic approach to the data wasexpected to elicit relevant information about book reviewing practices adopted inlinguistics, chemistry, and economics. This, in turn, was expected to help me draw aprofile of the communication practices adopted in each discipline as far as BRs areconcerned.The interviews provided information about the role played by BRs in the repertoireof academic genres. Among other things, the editors were asked how they saw their ownfield and which features of the disciplinary context should be taken into account inevaluating a book. Also, questions about who writes BRs, their significance to the field,and the kind of information expected to be conveyed by the genre were discussed. Theinterviews also served to inform the researcher about the fields of chemistry andeconomics to which applied linguists are commonly alien.