Negotiating the Social Services Oral Intake Interview: Communicative Needs of Nonnative Speakers of English

Genre analysis is applied to the study of discourse occurring in the social services financial intake interview, in which information previously written on an application form is reviewed to decide whether an applicant is eligible for benefits. This study of three oral intake interviews used a process of triangulation to establish a prototypical structure for the interview, which followed but did not exactly replicate the application form in content and linguistic structure. Although native‐English‐speaking and English language learner applicants responded to the interviewer in similar ways, the English language learner used little or no back‐channeling to show understanding and fewer explicit responses to confirmation requests and directives. Her responses (or lack of them) often suggested that she did not understand all the information conveyed by the interviewer. Misunderstanding in this context puts an applicant at risk of failing to secure financial support and even of unwittingly committing welfare fraud. This genre may be particularly difficult for English language learners to master, as they have no input on its nature before participating in it and no supportive, mediative collaboration during participation because their only interlocutor plays a different, more powerful role. TESOL professionals can use the findings of this study to design materials that will prepare nonnative‐speaking applicants to more effectively negotiate the social services oral intake interview.