The topicalization of culture in Cambridge undergraduate admissions interviews

4.1 English Literature interview, Greek candidate (GM1), interview score 8/10

The first extract involves a Greek candidate applying for English literature. He delivers a strong overall interview performance (8/10), which is exemplified by Extract #1, below, where he compares Ancient Greek tragedy with Shakespearean tragedy.

It is not prima facie apparent how a modern Greek speaker’s sociocultural background might confer on him the epistemic authority to speak about Ancient Greek literature, any more than being English entails an authority to speak about Beowulf (or, indeed, Shakespeare). Yet GM1’s personal statement makes it clear he has received advanced high school linguistic and literary training that has given him “a sound knowledge of Ancient Greek”, allowing him to read “parts of” Aristotle and Plato “in their original form”. In this respect, his sociocultural background forms the basis of skills that lend themselves to establishing the “presumption of knowledgeability” that is characteristic of the PS phase. Indeed, it is difficult to read the interviewer’s topicalization of Ancient Greek literature as random selection, given the candidate’s personal statement mentions a wide range of non-Greek authors (T.S Eliot, Jane Austen, Jules Verne, Henrik Ibsen etc.) from which the interviewer might otherwise have chosen. Conversely, the distance between Ancient Greek literature and the candidate’s modern sociocultural identity can also be understood as benefitting the candidate, as – unlike the subsequent candidates (SAF1 & ScF1) – it limits the scope for intercultural phenomena to come into play.

The candidate capitalizes on these propitious conditions by framing his argument in the objective, analytic and dispassionate style favoured by admissions interviewers, and institutional gatekeepers more generally (Roberts and Campbell 2005, 2006; Scheuer 2001). This is exemplified by Extract #1, which is taken from the start of the PS phase, and which draws on a comment in the candidate’s personal statement, where he describes Shakespeare’s Macbeth as “being reminiscent of Greek tragedy”:

Extract #1

1. INT a few things you said in the personal statement I was quite

2. interested in ehm you mentioned sort of en passant you said

3. “my first contact with English drama was through

4. Shakespeare’s Macbeth” and you say it’s reminiscent of

5. ancient Greek tragedy I was just wondering if you

6. could expand on that a bit?

7. CAN yes Aristotle formulated a:: definition of trage-g-y

8. INT uh huh

9. CAN tragedy and when I read Macbeth what I was mainly

10. trying to discover was ‘does this still apply?’

11. INT uh huh

12. CAN and ehm I saw to my surprise that even after all these

13. years this this definition still holds I mean hhh. ehm

14. it is a tragedy which is ehm separated in acts

15. INT uh huh

16. CAN CLEAR structure=

17. INT =uh [huh]

18. CAN [so] the language is poetic

19. INT uh huh=

20. CAN =ehm which also brings back to Aristotle’s definition=

21. INT =uh huh

22. CAN also it uses elements ehm of a m- th- m- the elements of

23. mercy and fear

24. INT uh huh

25. CAN creating the reader or the in this case the spectator

26. INT uh huh

27. CAN so that to:: see through the eyes of the protagonists

28. of ehm live their [fears] their joys their their desires

29. INT [uh huh]

30. CAN in a sense

31. INT uh huh

32. CAN ehm and it leads to what I sort of call catharsis

33. INT okay and and in terms of the unities? the classical

34. unities?

35. CAN the unities? you mean acts?

36. INT ehm well I mean unities I mean sort of as vaguely

37. <adumbrated> ehm by Aristotle and then later developed

38. you know in terms of plot and subplots and things like

39. that=

40. CAN =oh yes yes I see what you mean yes the plot is

41. much more complex than [anything] in Greek tragedy

42. INT [uh huh]

43. CAN and this is an indication that err tr- tragedy and drama

44. in general developed through the course of years=

45. INT =uh huh=

46. CAN =centuries I mean the Romans err contribute contribute

47. to that quite a lot=

48. INT =uh huh=

49. CAN =through arts poetica ( )

The interviewer’s initial question confers epistemic authority on the candidate in two ways, and in so doing, both indexes and establishes the presumption of knowledgeability (Lempert 2008) characteristic of the PS phase. First, unlike the Stimulus phase where direct questions index the student-teacher role relationship, here the tone is leisured and incidental (“a few things you said…I was quite interested in”), as well as indirect and hedged (“I was just wondering if you could expand on that a bit?”). Second, the choice of topic, Greek tragedy, further helps to position the candidate as an academic peer as it allows him to draw on his stated knowledge of Aristotle, whose Poetics is principally concerned with that literary genre.

Taking his cue from the interviewer, GM1 accentuates his claims to knowledge in an analytically appropriate fashion. He frames his response with a problem-solution structure, which comprises an initial question, “does [Aristotle’s definition of tragedy] still apply?” (l. 10), followed by a systematic historicization and theorization of tragedy (l. 9–l3), and then a delineation of its dramaturgical characteristics (l. 14–32). Such claims are, moreover, couched in an appropriate register of literary scholarship (“this definition still holds,” “the elements of mercy and fear,” “through the eyes of the protagonists”). In l. 32, GM1 then positions himself as an authority on Greek literary scholarship by relating the intense emotions of Greek tragedy to “what I sort of call catharsis”. The term ‘catharsis’ is common currency in literary scholarship, yet GM1 personalizes this claim with the qualification “what I sort of” (my emphasis). While it is possible GM1 has never encountered the aural English stress on this word’s penultimate syllable, the Greek manner of stressing the first syllable nonetheless also reasserts the word’s Greek origins, thereby marking it as within his epistemic territory (Heritage 2012a, 2012b).

In this manner, the participants co-construct the candidate’s rights to knowledge over the topic at hand. In l. 33–34, however, the interviewer then pivots from facilitating (Holmes 2007) the display of the candidate’s knowledge claims, to initiating their critique. Specifically, INT invokes the notion of the “classical unities”, which are attested in Greek tragedy but not in Macbeth, thereby challenging the candidate’s central claim that the two are structurally similar (l. 12–16). In Lempert’s (2008) terms, this is the point at which the presumption of knowledgeability is put to the test. In more conventional academic terms, such a pivot also embeds the two nested phases of an academic talk, where a speaker presents on a specific topic before being questioned on their presentation. Indeed, this comparison is compelling as, like academic talks, a failure to establish analytic rigour in the initial exposition can generate compensatory critique in the subsequent discussion. In this case, the critique is relatively muted as GM1 presents himself as objective and analytic from the start of the PS phase. In contrast to the subsequent example, this self-presentation is also aided by the distance between the topicalization of Ancient Greek literature and the candidate’s own sociocultural identity. Nevertheless, it is still a potentially humbling moment for GM1 as it has the potential to strip him, abruptly, of his epistemic authority. Indeed, this appears to be exactly what might happen when GM1 does not recognize the term “classical unities”, and/or possibly the concept itself (l. 35). In an apparent effort to maintain the peer-peer role relationship, INT’s attempts at assistive repair are, moreover, cast in a recondite register of language (“as adumbrated by…”) (Weston 2021: 143) that is simultaneously dismissive of the need to gloss, explain or elaborate further (“in terms of plot and subplots and things like that.”)

Humbling moments such as these are attested across admissions interviews, as the gap between a candidate’s attributed knowledge status and their actual epistemic resources becomes apparent. In this example, the candidate’s efforts at repair are successful. In. l. 40–41, GM1 does not interpret INT’s challenge as a critique of his own line of reasoning, but instead infers that Ancient Greek tragedy comprises less complex plotting than Shakespearean tragedy (“yes the plot (.) is much more complex than [anything] in Greek tragedy”). Such a move is also indirectly hearable as GM1’s attempt to fit in (Kirilova and Angouri 2018) in this Cambridge context, where the ultimate prize is to be a student of English literature. GM1 then continues to outline the historical development of tragedy in l. 40–49, using an appropriate register of literary language (“ars poetica”). The Interviewer’s Report notes, correspondingly, that GM1 wrestles effectively with problems, while sometimes “deflecting questions”. He is, nevertheless, awarded a high number score for the interview (8/10), which speaks to his ability to live up to the “presumption of knowledgeability” conferred on him by the interviewer in the PS phase of the interview.

4.2 Architecture interview, Saudi Arabian candidate (SAF1), interview score 5/10

Extracts #2–4 involve a Saudi Arabian candidate who has applied for a position in Architecture. Unlike the previous (and subsequent) example, this interview exemplifies a case where the candidate voluntarily topicalizes culture in ways that overlap with her own sociocultural background. As we shall see, such a strategy also becomes enmeshed with her attempts to fit in (Kirilova and Angouri 2018; Roberts and Campbell 2006) with the values she implicitly attributes to a liberal, Western university, as embodied in the figure of the interviewer.

In the candidate’s personal statement, she claims that architects are drivers of social change. When questioned on this at the start of the PS phase, she topicalizes, and then draws on knowledge of, her own Saudi background to illustrate and justify such a claim. She establishes a contrast between the introduction of “new [architectural] ideas” (#2 l. 17) from Western countries, which are described as having “the best architects”, and the Islamic architecture she associates with Saudi’s conservative past. Such positioning work recalls migrant candidates in job interviews who also attempt to fit in (Kirilova and Angouri 2018) with the target company by aligning themselves with the perceived values of the host culture, and by distancing themselves from the stigmatized aspects of their own culture (Goffman 1963). This interpretation is further strengthened by the candidate’s own subsequent sociocultural self-positioning (#4), where she also expresses an individual (and familial) openness to “new ideas” (#4 l. 19) which, in her view, contrast with the “close minded” practice of Islam in Saudi Arabia (#4 l. 12–14). Counterpoint to this is the behaviour of the interviewer, who is ultimately concerned with debating the academic claim that architects can be drivers of social change (#2 l. 4–7) rather than with the candidate’s attempted construction of a likeminded sociocultural identity.

Extract #2 occurs at the very beginning of the PS phase, when the interviewer has the candidate’s personal statement literally in hand:

Extract #2

1. INT SO ehm you talk about your background and your interests

2. in Architecture ehm and you talk about the work of ehm

3. Alastair Parvin who’s a co-founder of Wikihouse ehm

4. you say “Parvin describes how architects are becom- are

5. becoming increasingly responsible as drivers of social

6. change” so perhaps can you tell me how you believe

7. that architects can be drivers of social change?

8. CAN well ehm I think that in a sense architecture does

9. reflect like the society that it surrounds itself in

10. ehm in terms of I think especially like back home in ( )

11. in back home in in Saudi Arabia ehm you see a lot of

12. buildings are becoming are being more influenced by

13. western ideals and everything and you kind of feel

14. especially in my city I mean if you went back to [name of

15. town] thirty years ago then it would be comp- it was very

16. conservative but now I think a- especially with

17. architecture it’s a way of introducing new ideas like this

18. whole it’s introducing these new western ideas this

19. new western architecture’s it’s not just about Islamic

20. architecture anymore

21. INT uh huh

22. CAN and there was a bit of conflict in the beginning because

23. they wanted to build a new one mile high building to beat

24. Burj Khalifa as the tallest building in the world and there

25. was this huge outcry especially by the religious police

26. because there is a prophesy about the end of time when

27. a building can reach the sky and ( ) you won’t be able

28. to see the ceiling and they thought this one mile high

29. building was in a sense fulfilling that prophesy and they

30. just thought it was in-intruding upon culture and it

31. was put on hold for about two years and now they’re

32. building it again

33. INT (laughter)

34. CAN because (laughter) I think the rest of the world’s

35. a bit like ( )

Although the interviewer’s initial question does not explicitly invoke SAF1’s cultural background, it is nonetheless broad enough to facilitate (Holmes 2007) its topicalization. Like GM1, SAF1 starts by framing her response in analytical terms: she describes how architecture reflects the society that surrounds it (l. 8–9). Saudi Arabia is then voluntarily invoked as an example of how Western architecture has introduced “new western ideas” (l. 18) into an otherwise “conservative” (l. 16), Islamic society. SAF1 then provides the example of a mile high city (l. 23–35), which exemplifies the social tensions arising from the introduction of Western architecture into this society. Importantly, however, this is cast in the form of a joke, which contrasts religiously motivated attempts to stop the construction of a building that might fulfil apocalyptic prophecy with a bathetic coda (“now they’re building it again”). Thus, SAF1 skilfully uses humour to establish “co-membership” (Erickson and Shultz 1982; Van De Mieroop and Schnurr 2018) with her interviewer. In so doing, she also aligns with the “rest of the world” (l. 34–35) in its (attributed) evaluation of Saudi’s conservative religious beliefs, thereby also distancing herself from this stigmatized aspect of her sociocultural background (Goffman 1963).

While this might appear to be a promising beginning for the candidate, the interviewer subsequently responds – like the previous interviewer (#1 l. 33–34) – with a critique of the candidate’s academic claim. The presumption of knowledgeability is thus put to the test. Unlike the previous interview, however, this critique is more pointed, as it indexes a juxtaposition between the candidate’s attempt to establish a likeminded sociocultural identity with the academic point and purpose of the encounter. In this respect, it also reveals the interactional tensions that can emerge when the topicalization of culture overlaps with the candidate’s own sociocultural background:

Extract #3

1. INT I mean y- you mention Saudi now clearly there’ve

2. been one of that word *Western* buildings in Saudi

3. for quite a some considerable time certainly since the

4. nineteen seventies with the development of oil and

5. ehm the discovery of oil and oil wealth there why

6. does w- given that it’s ehm in some ways it’s quite a

7. traditional society and there’s very strong sort of

8. religious beliefs and what have you why *are* there

9. Western buildings in Saudi why is there not just a

10. a a different form of y’know twenty-first century version

11. of *Islamic* architecture?

12. CAN because the architects that they bring have been

13. Western educated

In Extract #2, as we have seen, the candidate associates the sociocultural category “Western” with the introduction of “new ideas”, with which she aligns via the establishment of co-membership (see also #2, l. 31–32, #4 l. 18–19, #5 l. 21–23). Yet the very category that is the basis of this strategy also reveals the interviewer’s divergent discursive priorities. While the candidate might use the term “Western” to index progressive architectural and social change in Saudi Arabia, the interviewer flags it instead as theoretically problematic. In Extract #3 l. 2, for example, INT appears to critique the cultural reification and homogenization implicit in the term “Western”, via the use of flagging and exaggerated intonation. The consequences of SAF1’s use of this term are also apparent in the Interviewer’s Report, where the word “Western” appears in scare quotes, alongside a summary of the candidate’s claims. This situation recalls the example in Kirilova and Angouri (2017, 2018), where the discursive strategies a migrant jobseeker uses to impress his interviewer on an interpersonal level actually contribute to “widening the gap” (Kirilova and Angouri 2018: 349) between them on a professional level.

SAF1’s response in #3 l. 12–13 does not help to narrow the gap between herself and the interviewer. The interviewer critiques the idea that architects are drivers of social change, given there have been Western buildings in Saudi Arabia since the 1970s (l. 2–5), and the country continues to be a “traditional” society with “very strong… religious beliefs” (l. 7–8). He then poses a counterfactual question in an attempt to draw out why an Islamic tradition of modern architecture has not emerged. Although this question can be interpreted and answered in a number of ways, the candidate fails to infer the interviewer’s dissatisfaction with the term “Western”, and so continues to use this in her response (“because the architects that they bring in have been Western educated”). This move is then repeated later in the same turn, when she describes how “the best architects are in the West”.

On the one hand, such moves are comparable to the way in which GM1 demonstrates his admiration for English literature by unfavourably comparing specific aspects of Ancient Greek literature (Extract #1 l. 40–41). On the other hand, this is only a fleeting comment in GM1’s case, and one which he contextualizes in the service of a greater analytic point. In SAF1’s case, however, it is a central feature of her self-presentation; one whose centrality is shared with candidates from other gatekeeping encounters (Kirilova and Angouri 2018; Roberts and Campbell 2006) whose efforts to pass (Goffman 1963) as socio-culturally acceptable candidates are likewise counterproductive. Such efforts are acutely apparent in the final part of the PS phase, when the candidate engages in an explicit form of sociocultural self-positioning.

This final sequence begins when, having failed to elicit his preferred type of discussion, the interviewer spells out his critique; namely, that if architects really were drivers of social change, why would Saudi Arabia use architects and architectural styles that were antithetical to its conservative, religious sensibilities:

Extract #4

1. INT it would seem to me that if you wanted to maintain

2. a certain moral or spiritual or social order you would

3. perhaps be very resistant to introducing a type of

4. architecture which is essentially atheist you know is

5. all about democracy and social inclusion and social

6. equality and all of these different things

7. CAN I think it depends on the mindset of those that

8. bring in that Western architecture if you’re coming in

9. to say ‘No I’m bringing in democracy’=

10. INT =uh huh=

11. CAN =because your country doesn’t *have* democracy

12. then I think you will face resistance but if you’re

13. open-minded and you’re saying ‘here this is

14. another route ( ) here this is what we have over

15. here’

16. INT uh huh

17. CAN they’re sort of introducing it because the thing about

18. Saudi Arabia and Islam is I don’t always agree

19. with their version of Islam I think some of them are

20. very close minded

21. INT [uh huh]

22. CAN [and I] think in Islam especially I think we’re taught

23. °my parents always taught me to be° open minded

24. I wouldn’t say I’m a bad Muslim but I’m still open

25. minded to like new ideas so I think that

26. yo- Saudi Arabia I think it’s in a sense good

27. for them that they have this balance of Islamic

28. architecture and Western architecture

29. INT uh huh

30. CAN because in a sense it provides that kind of harmony

31. and it introduces new ideas to a country that

32. I think tends to live in its own little world

33. INT uh huh

34. CAN we’re in a kind of our own bubble ( )

SAF1 attempts to reassert her epistemic authority by positioning herself as a guide to the sociocultural context of Saudi Arabia, offering advice as to how Western architects in the country should proceed if they wish to be successful (l. 7–15). In l. 17, she also begins to articulate a response to the interviewer’s critique (“they’re sort of introducing it because”). Yet, while the subsequent response is structured as if it were a Hegelian dialectic, comprising a thesis (“I think some of them are very closeminded”), antithesis (“my parents always taught me to be open minded”) and a synthesis (“it’s in a sense good for them that they have this balance”), it does not serve to establish truth through rational argument so much as it plays out SAF1’s own sociocultural self-positioning.

Following Goffman (1963), SAF1 distances herself from a stigmatic “version of Islam” (l. 19–20), which she identifies using the othering pronouns “their” and “them”. She then presents herself and her upbringing as a contrastive example of a Muslim who is “open minded” to “new ideas,” here with the corresponding pronouns “I” and “me”. The reference to open-mindedness recalls SAF1’s previous positive assessment of the influence of Western architecture, which consequently becomes the focus of the synthesis, where SAF1 suggests that Western and Saudi architecture together can achieve “balance” (l. 27) and “harmony” (l. 30). This also recalls her personal statement, where she invokes the “standardized relational pair” (Sacks 1972) of “the East and West”, which she sees architecture as a means of “bridging”.

In other gatekeeping encounters, as we have seen, the overt discussion of ethnic or sociocultural background can make interviewers feel uncomfortable, as candidates are expected to present a dispassionate, analytic and euphemized self (Roberts 2021: 241). This is also true of the admissions interview, though with the added specificity that its point and purpose is to test a candidate’s analytic mettle. Such expectations are, however, not always made apparent frontstage (Weston and Tranekjær 2023), nor is deviation from them interactionally marked. As Goffman (1956) notes, it is backstage where candidates are judged on their behaviour, where sorting processes quietly take place, and final decisions are made. This is also the case in Extract #4, where, on the one hand, the interviewer confines his responses to continuers, yet, on the other hand, describes in his Interviewer’s Report how SAF1 provides “no great insight” on architecture in Saudi Arabia. As such, she receives only a mediocre (5/10) mark for her interview performance.

4.3 Psychological and Behavioural Sciences, Scottish candidate (ScF1), interview score 8/10

The final example (Extracts #7-#8) involves a Scottish candidate (ScF1) applying for the Psychological and Behavioural Sciences (PBS). This interview is different from the previous interviews in revealing and consequential ways. Unlike the previous candidates, ScF1 is explicitly questioned on aspects of her sociocultural background, even though she does not, herself, voluntarily topicalize them. She is also subject to more acute processes of discursive foreignizing (Day 1998, 2006; Tranekjær 2015) than any other candidate in the CUI corpus. While this might seem unusual given ScF1 is – like her English interviewers – from the United Kingdom, such sociocultural proximity appears to license interviewer behaviour that might otherwise be (regarded as) risky or unacceptable.

Following Day (1998, 2006), we might expect such foreignization to be accompanied by the devaluation of this candidate’s skills and competencies, and for her consequently to receive a lower interview score. Yet this does not appear to be the case for two interrelated reasons. First, Extract #5 shows that ScF1 is able to fit in (Kirilova and Angouri 2018) with her interviewers by establishing co-membership, through shared jokes and memories, in ways that play along with their sociocultural assumptions. Second, the analytic demands made of other candidates are less pronounced in this case precisely because the discussion is centred on a book about Scotland (Trainspotting) which the candidate has neither read nor referred to in her personal statement. As such, the presumption of knowledgeability characteristic of the PS phase gives way to a resumption of the teacher driven role relationship we see in the Stimulus phase. Thus, the task facing the candidate is to be shepherded to the interviewers’ preferred responses, which in this case reflect stereotypical associations of Scotland. ScF1’s “strong” mark for this interview (8/10) is, in part, attributable both to her ability to infer what this task is, and her willingness to accomplish it, despite its foreignizing effects.

The relevant sequence begins when the interviewer introduces the topic of Trainspotting, which he mentions with reference to a newspaper opinion poll:

Extract #5

1. INT ehm I (.) was reading last week ehm I think there

2. was a poll in which Trainspotting was voted by Scottish

3. people as their favourite novel did you see (.) [that (.) poll]

4. CAN [no ( )]

5. INT it was in the newspaper

6. CAN I’ve never actually seen Trainspotting either

7. INT you’ve not read or seen Trainspotting?

8. CAN no

9. INT okay it’s a very good book

10. CAN ( ) Braveheart ( ) in Scotland but it’s not really

11. INT well I guess it was just about ninety four wasn’t it so

12. I guess it feels it’s probably almost a historic arti@fact

13. [now]

14. INT2 [some] are vintage though ‘cos err Braveheart’s what ninety

15. five wasn’t it

16. INT right

17. INT2 it won err best film in ninety four which is staggering

18. CAN ([ ])

19. INT2 [it is] a genuinely terrible film=

20. CAN =in first and second ( )

21. let’s watch Braveheart ( ) [(laughter)]

22. INT2 [(laughter)]

23. CAN ( ) awful (laughter)

24. INT2 but I mean it’s- but y’know y- y- y- you have a sense of

25. what Trainspotting’s about? ( ) it’s about? and what it

26. covers? [Okay]

27. CAN [not really] I’ve not

28. INT2 right okay well it paints a picture quite a bleak picture of

29. Scotland it’s very much to do with heroin ehm in the

30. sort of eighties and nineties and ehm the sort of and

31. sort of deprivation around ehm an area of Edinburgh

32. and it’s quite violent it’s quite dark it’s very bleak it’s an

33. outstanding novel

34. CAN it sounds like [name of town] where I’m from (laughter)

35. INT2 (laughter) but but I think my question was when it’s show-

36. so ehm ( ) given what I’ve just said (lip smacking) what

37. do you think that says about (.) psychology and p-

38. perhaps self-perception of Scottish people if if if

39. a novel of that type is felt to be something that is that

40. is actually the best the greatest ever Scottish

41. novel what do you think that tells us?

42. CAN that Scottish people are quite negative and pessimistic

43. ehm I would say that’s probably true actually ‘cos ehm

44. even when it comes to like personal statements in school

45. people are like ehm ‘I don’t know how to like big

46. myself up and how to sell myself’

As with Extract #1 l. 1–6 (Ancient Greek literature), INT2’s reference to reading the newspaper opinion poll (#5 1–3) is leisured, thereby helping to co-construct the peer-peer role relationship characteristic of the PS phase of the interview. Moreover, the choice of topic, the Scottish reception of the novel Trainspotting, appears to be a further attempt to position the candidate as an epistemic authority, based on the fact she is from Scotland. This strategy differs from that of the previous interviewers, who either refer to the candidate’s personal statements (GM1), or who allow the candidates themselves to do so (SAF1).

Such a strategy is also consequential as it fails to set up the conditions for the presumption of knowledgeability, given the candidate has neither read the book Trainspotting nor seen the film adaptation (l. 6). Although this might seem an unpromising beginning to this interactional sequence, it nevertheless tees up the establishment of co-membership, even if this is played out with reference to foreignizing archetypes of the Scottish. After ScF1 states she has not read Trainspotting, she then makes a counter reference to Braveheart (l. 10). On the one hand, this might represent an implicit attempt to renegotiate the indexicalities of Scotland, away from the violent, bleak, and drug-fuelled country in Trainspotting, and towards one where noble rebels bravely resist English overlordship. Yet this specific renegotiation fails when INT2 describes it in l. 19 as “a genuinely terrible film”, which contrasts with INT’s description of Trainspotting as “a very good book” (l. 9). On the other hand, the discussion of Braveheart also leads to the establishment of co-membership, as the participants share laughter over their memories of watching the film (l. 21–23).

INT’s persistence in returning to Trainspotting (l. 24–26) is unusual, as the PS phase typically affords the candidate time to establish their epistemic authority over a topic before their claims are discursively interrogated. In this case, however, it is the interviewer who must supply the background to this topic (l. 28–33), given the candidate’s apparent lack of familiarity with it and/or her reluctance to discuss it. Although this lack of knowledge might feasibly count against the candidate, it appears in fact to work in her favour. It firstly allows her to make a joke (l. 34) about how the Scotland of Trainspotting resembles her hometown. As in Extract #2 (l. 31–32), this again leads to the establishment of co-membership through laughter. Secondly, it leads to the re-establishment of the teacher-student relationship in l. 35–41, when INT2 asks a leading question on the question of Scottish national character. That the preferred answer is obvious and easily deliverable is clear from ScF1’s use of a sentence-initial fronting of the subordinate clause (“that Scottish people are quite…”), which indexes the co-construction of this question-answer sequence (Button 1987).

The cost, of course, is that the candidate is required to distance herself from the stigmatized (Goffman 1963) image of Scotland invoked by INT2, and align with the interviewer’s archetype of the ‘dour’ Scottish. Such behaviour is also apparent in Extract #6, which reprises ScF1’s assessment of her hometown as “bleak” (Extract #5, l. 34). In answer to INT2’s question as to why that is the case, ScF1 describes the impoverished look of the town centre, at which point the extract begins:

Extract #6

1. INT is it economic conditions you’re really talking about?

2. CAN there’s really bad economic conditions but like I think

3. that’s affected them socially as well because there’s

4. not much to- because there’s not any shops ehm

5. INT uh huh

6. CAN everything’s just really run down and it’s quite bleak

7. yes

8. INT so there’s economics what about climate do you think

9. that’s a factor?

10. CAN ehm I’m not really sure I don’t think [so]

11. INT [uh huh]

12. CAN it’s just the economical (sic) climate obviously

13. INT [uh huh]

14. CAN [but ehm] yeah it’s just rundown it’s horrible it’s

15. not somewhere I’d choose to live

Just as SAF1 distances herself from a stigmatized version of Islam (#4, l. 19) through the othering use of pronouns, so too does ScF1 refer to how the “bad economic conditions” (l. 2) have affected the residents – “them” – socially. In SAF1’s case, however, such sociocultural self-positioning is voluntarily introduced, and appears at odds with the interviewer’s line of questioning about architects as drivers of social change. By contrast, ScF1’s self-positioning is made relevant by the interviewer’s explicit focus on Scotland’s supposedly depressing character, and by the teacher-student role relationship through which it is mediated. Such a role relationship is again apparent in Extract #6 through the use of leading questions (“is it economic conditions you’re really talking about?”, “what about climate do you think that’s a factor?”) and the formulation (Heritage and Watson 1979) of the candidate’s responses (“so there’s economics”). Interestingly, ScF1 fleetingly pushes back against this role relationship at the high (or low) point of INT’s foreignizing questioning, in this case the influence of the Scottish climate. She refutes such a suggestion (“ehm I’m not really sure I don’t think [so]”), before emphasizing instead universal grounds for deprivation (“it’s just the economical (sic) climate”). Finally, however, she continues to fit in with her interviewers’ opinions and assumptions by distancing herself from her sociocultural background: she would not “choose to live” (l. 15) in her hometown. She is awarded a high mark (8/10) for the interview.