HOW TO ANALYSE THE DIALOGUE " CURRICULUM VITAE"

Dialogue - Curriculum Vitae


Buongiorno signor... Mossini, no?
l Sì, Mossini. Buongiorno. Mi scusi per il ritardo,
ma ho trovato molto traffico. Sa, con la pioggia...

 - Non importa, capisco. Prego, si accomodi... Vogliamo vedere insieme il Suo Curriculum Vitae?-

- Certo.

- Dunque, è nato a Pisa, ma si è laureato in Economia e Commercio a...

- l ...a Firenze.
- Con 104, vero?
- l Sì, esatto.
-  Però si è laureato in 7 anni, giusto?
- l Veramente in 6, l’ultimo anno ho avuto un serio
incidente col motorino, e sono rimasto un po’ indietro.
- Ho capito... Vedo che è stato a Londra.
- l Sì, ho vinto una borsa di studio e il terzo anno
sono andato in Inghilterra.
-  E come è stata l’esperienza?
- l Ottima, perché l’università era molto buona. Al -
l’inizio ho avuto qualche problema con la lingua,
ma presto, con la pratica...
- Infatti, perché vedo qui che il Suo inglese è ottimo.
- l Ormai sì, sia scritto che orale.
- Vedo che sa bene anche il francese, ma qui non
credo che Le servirà. Col computer se la cava be ne?
- l Certo, ho il diploma europeo ECDL, e in Inghil -
terra ho imparato a fare pagine web.
- Perfetto. Di esperienze di lavoro però vedo che ne
ha fatte poche.
- l E sì, è vero... durante gli studi avrei potuto trovare
un lavoro part-time, ma sa, ho preferito concentrarmi
sugli studi... poi ho avuto quell’incidente.
In somma... l’esperienza più importante è quella
che vede nel curriculum, per la Soft Systems di
Firenze.
- Ecco, lì cosa faceva, quali erano le Sue mansioni?
- l Ero nel reparto vendite, praticamente visitavo del -
le aziende per presentare i nostri prodotti, sa programmi
per computer eccetera. Ci ho lavorato circa due anni.

-  E per quale motivo se n’è andato?

- l Perché... perché non vedevo un futuro, una prospettiva.
Non so, forse io non sono tanto portato
per le vendite...

- Ho capito... comunque, non è quello che stiamo
cercando noi, quindi non è un problema. Signor
Mossini, io avrei un altro appunta men to alle 11,
ma credo di aver sentito quello che vo levo sentire.
Può darsi che ci sarà un altro collo quio ancora,
con me o con un mio collega. La ringrazio per il
Suo tempo.
- l Grazie a Lei. ArrivederLa!
- Arrivederci.

Analysis of the dialogue: "Curriculum vitae"

This dialogue between an interviewer and a candidate for a job starts with the first turn of speech by the interviewer stated through a formal greeting: "Good morning, Mr. Mossini, isn't it?" with the presence of truncation to the name "mister" as a way of adhering to a "refined" form of language with a request for final "non" mitigation as a discursive signal to avoid making the candidate pay too high costs in terms of negative face for not knowing the name of the candidate. This start represents a strong threat to the candidate's positive face during this start of dialogue where only the "no" mitigation allows to mitigate some form of reparation. The candidate replies with "yes, Mossini. Good morning. Sorry for the delay but I found a lot of traffic. You know with the rain". In this turn of words, the candidate Mossini accepts the mitigation with a minimal ratification "yes" by explaining his surname as usually happens in an institutional cultural scene in Italy where the surname is the important element. His turn of words contemplates an offer of apologies to try to pay as little as possible in terms of loss of negative face since we are in a job interview where the value of "punctuality" is a crucial point for establishing a good relationship between the interlocutors and not to lose your negative face from the beginning of the interview. The candidate Mossini offers an external justification to avoid paying too many costs in terms of a negative face. To keep in mind how culturally traffic is usually the first excuse used in Italy to justify any type of delay or impediment in carrying out one's daily activity. The justification with the external element "knows with the rain" allows the costs of the loss of negative face to fall to an external body not present between the two interlocutors in order to seek an interaction balance weakened from the first turn of words.The interviewer continues with "Please, take a seat" with this imperative of politeness to signal the invitation of an exhortative type in performing a certain linguistic act. Then the interviewer continues with "we want to see" as a form of invitation formulated with an engaging style to underline the adhesion in this statement of a positive politeness to enhance the positive face of the candidate. The use of the first person in the plural highlights a form of association in this work of building an interview with the path of the candidate Mossini.
The ratification of the "certain" candidate Mossini is minimal in order to contemplate a form of adhesion to a positive politeness. The interviewer's turn of speech offers a descriptive contextualization framework of the candidate with at the end a search for confirmation with the discursive signal "no" as a form of request for acceptance of the reality he is presenting to the candidate in order to avoid any mistakes that would be a cost for its downside.
The candidate limits himself to a simple ratification in order to maintain a defence against his own negative courtesy, which is often expressed in ratifications made in a few words.

 

The interviewer continues with a statement like "but he graduated in 7 years right?" which represents a threatening question for the candidate's need for a positive face since in the Italian context we know that it takes 5 years to obtain a specialist degree. The only mitigating element of this statement will be the discursive signal of "right" to avoid conferring too many benefits on the interviewer's positive face by showing the fact of knowing his work. The reply of the candidate Mossini will be to specify "really in 6" as a form of repair in order to avoid having to pay too many interactional costs by totally accepting the vision of reality sanctioned by the interviewer. The candidate makes a repair to protect his negative face and also performs a mitigation act justifying this delay due to an accident with the scooter. Also in this case, to protect his need for a negative face, he finds a mitigation through an external element that has prevented the enhancement of his positive face. The candidate knows that the closure of university studies should be in 5 years and therefore places the adverbial phrase "a little" to reduce the costs incurred in terms of loss of positive face.
"I understand" will be the beginning of the interviewer's reply to record the candidate's response while maintaining a style in tune with the need to protect his negative courtesy. "I see that he was in London" this turn of the interviewer's word allows to enhance the positive face of the candidate since he already suffered big costs for his positive face with the fact of having finished his studies late. The candidate Mossini replies "yes I won a scholarship" as a linguistic act to put forward the need to enhance one's positive face by explaining one's qualities and specifying "and the third year I went to England" as a way of describing the facts as they are occurred in terms of contextualization.

 

The interviewer is looking for more information in order not to pay costs to his negative face because of the impossibility of doing his job and therefore he makes a request for more information with "and how was the experience?" asks the interviewer as a way to get more details and to better evaluate the experience in the light of the interviewer's interests related to language proficiency. This question is used to be able to carry out his job as an interviewer and therefore to avoid paying too many costs for his negative face and to obtain benefits in terms of a positive face. The candidate ratifies with a style in line with the positive courtesy with the use of the adjective "excellent" describing the university as a good way to gain a positive face since many in Italy know the prestige of British universities. Increase its positive face by obtaining interactional benefits which, however, are immediately mitigated with the maximum quality "be sincere" stating that there were problems at the beginning related to the language which will then be overcome with time. In this statement, the candidate pays costs in international terms for his need to protect his negative face while the second part of the statement allows you to regain the positive face of the candidate. The interviewer ratifies with "in fact, because I see here that his English is excellent" to accept the candidate's need for a positive face with the use of the adjective "excellent". The use of adjectives is very important to give or not a positive face.The reply of the candidate Mossini will be "now both written and oral" to accept the interviewer's reply thus giving a positive face to his person but with a form of mitigation with the adverb "now". The interviewer continues the dialogue noting that the candidate also knows French well as a way of giving the candidate a positive face but in the end mitigates or denies the need for a positive face by affirming the uselessness of this competence in this job. This act is however mitigated by the verb "creed" as a discursive signal to avoid paying unnecessary costs towards the candidate's need for a positive face. Another question to allow you to go ahead in the interview and to obtain its interactional benefit in terms of a positive face: are you doing well with the computer? it is a way of asking the colloquial type while using a formal register in the expression of positive courtesy. The candidate's reply will be "of course I have the European ECDL diploma" and in England I learned to make web pages. In this round, the candidate ratifies with a "certain" adverb to give a positive face to his person by explaining possession of the diploma and his experience as elements for obtaining benefits in terms of a positive face.
The interviewer records with "perfect" as a mode in tune with positive politeness. "But" is the adverb that always brings costs to pay with the interviewer in this case we see very high costs for the defence of his positive face, due to few work experiences. This linguistic act represents a strong threat to the one who receives this assertion.

"and yes, it is true" minimal ratification by Mossini to accept the costs of this threat because it would be useless to oppose another vision of reality. There would be no benefit in replicating in another way. To mitigate costs, he offers his explanation of reality by describing the fact that he dedicated himself to the study and then suffered this bad accident. This is an attempt to rebalance the candidate's positive face to rebalance the costs / benefits present in that question. The candidate begins with a discursive signal "in short" to maintain a defence of his negative face with his right to preserve his autonomy by mentioning the fact that his reality is all present in the CV. The interviewer to obtain benefits in terms of face needs other elements in order not to incur costs to his positive face due to the impossibility of carrying on his work. Again the sense of the request for clarification reappears). The candidate describes his working reality as a way to defend his need for a negative face in terms of safeguarding the protection of his autonomy. In continuing the dialogue, the interviewer wants to know the reason for the end of his working relationship with the previous company in order to defend his negative face always looking for the possibility of doing his job by formulating these questions. The candidate offers a defence of his negative face by putting forward the cultural dimension of strongly avoiding uncertainty as a motivation for his action because the candidate Mossini has left his job to combat this cultural dimension, which represented a strong threat to the his need for recognition for his positive face.

The interviewer ratifies with a "I understand" in harmony with the defence of his negative face then a mitigation or reinforcement element is offered for the candidate's own negative face offering as a benefit the fact that "is not what we are looking for ". In practice, it does not charge the candidate any other costs. At the end of the interview, the interviewer then calls the candidate "Mossini Mister", assisting the person with the absence of the title of doctor, as is usually the case with a person holding a degree. This highlights the asymmetrical relationship between the two people. This is a very threatening act in terms of lack of recognition of the need for a positive face and creating a threat to the need for autonomy in terms of negative courtesy for the candidate. The interviewer no longer has time, so he unilaterally decides the duration of the interview by making the nature of the dialogue clearly understood. This move to make costs to the positive side of the interlocutor can appear a strong threat because often this kind of cultural situation allows a certain degree of implicitly among the interlocutors who know this cultural framework. Then the interviewer grants mitigation elements to reduce the costs incurred in terms of a negative face by the candidate by offering an element of justification such as the possibility of a future interview. In this way he finally manages to strengthen the need to protect Mossini's negative face. The interviewer closes the dialogue with the acknowledgments, which are not ratified immediately by the candidate because he does not intend to charge the interviewer's positive face for costs for "wasting time with this interview". In this way, the candidate manages to defend his negative face for an interview that is not quite so exciting.