Interactive resources used in semi-structured research interviewing

The present paper is a study of the way informants and interviewers make use of interactive resources in the joint construction of semi-structured interviews. It is shown that accountability, understood as the natural disposition of respondents to provide an account of what they are doing and saying, is a powerful instrument in negotiating and verifying the collective production of meaning in this particular type of 'conversation'. The article is based on first-hand data collected from interviews with native speakers of Spanish and Danish.