La entrevista sociolingüística y su valor como método de investigación
In this study we carried out the analysis of the main problems found at the time of using sociolinguistic interviews as a field method in search of authentic samples of linguistic performance. Such problematic arises from the very nature of the methodology used based on the observer's paradox (Labov 1972), and imposes the necessity to reflect on the advantages and inherent disadvantages on the used instrument of investigation.  With this intention, the primary goal pursued is to give answer to a question that underlies when speaking of the sociolinguistic interview: How to obtain samples of spontaneous style’s speech in the systematic observation of the interview? In order to try to give an answer to this problematic, a sample of twenty semi-structured interviews that integrates the Corpus of Spoken Rural Spanish (or Corpus Oral y Sonoro del Español Rural, COSER) was reviewed and analyzed (25 hours of recording).   The study of the sociolinguistic interviews as scientific method reveals as main result that among the strategies to reduce the effects of the observer's paradox the tactic to ask the informer to speak about an object of special affective value should be included, in order to generate a dismantling of the formal scheme of the interview and an emotional situation, in such a way that emotion neutralizes his linguistic consciousness and his speech. Thus, the attention of the speaker will concentrate in the same object and not in its formal speech, which leads to obtaining samples of more spontaneous and colloquial style.
Sociolinguistic Methodology Interviews Observer's paradox Corpus of Spoken Rural Spanish Corpus Oral y Sonoro del Español Rural