A Research On Conversations Between Interviewers And Interviewees From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

As we all know, job interviews are playing an increasingly important role in job applicants’ effort in finding a job. Different expressing ways reveal different intentions. From the interviewer’s perspective, different questioning ways result in different effects; while from the interviewee’s perspective, different questions ask for further analysis of implied meanings in order to respond appropriately. Therefore, making detailed analysis of interviewers’effective questioning ways and implied intentions make great significance.In light of the basic principles of Relevance Theory, the present thesis focuses on the interviewer-interviewee interaction in form of question-answer in job interviews and analyzes interviewers’talk under the framework of Relevance Theory to prove that Relevance Theory is able to provide an explanation for interviewer-interviewee interaction. Through the analysis, we find that interviewer-interviewee interaction, from a cognitive pragmatic point of view, is by nature a process of searching for optimal relevance and ostensive-inferential communication between interviewers and interviewees. In addition, relevance is critical to both speaker’s generation of meaningful utterance and hearer’s capture of meaningful information. In view of this, the author interprets questioning relevance from two aspects:relevance in questioning generation and relevance in questioning understanding. Based on the analysis, the study proposes some implications on interviewers for successful interviewer-interviewee interaction in job interviews.This paper consists of five parts.Chapter one is an overall introduction including the significance and the scope of the study. A brief introduction to the organization of the thesis is also included.Chapter two introduces the literature review. Previous researches on job interviews home and abroad are reviewed.Chapter three presents the theoretical framework of the present study-Relevance Theory. A few key concepts are presented such as ostensive-inferential communication, mutual manifestness, maximal relevance, optimal relevance, etc. Chapter four is the main body of the study. It discusses in detail the nature of interviewer-interviewee interactions as the process of ostensive-inferential communication and the process of seeking out optimal relevance in the light of RT. In addition, the author interprets questioning relevance from two aspects:relevance in questioning generation and relevance in question understanding. At last, the author tries to give implications on interviewers’questioning on the basis of the above analysis from four aspects of asking relevant questions, asking ostensive questions, asking questions that can help achieve mutual manifestness and asking questions that can help seek out optimal relevance.Chapter five covers a conclusion of the findings, applications, limitations of the present study and suggestions for the further study.