Reformulation
Definition
An interviewer's restatement of what the interviewee just said, often shorter or differently framed. If the interviewee does not correct it, the reformulation may stand as the agreed version of what was said.
- Actor
- The interviewer
- Action
- Restates what the interviewee just said
- Risk
- Uncorrected reformulation can stand as the agreed version
- Field
- Police interview discourse analysis
Common questions
Why does an uncorrected reformulation carry evidentiary weight later?+
If the interviewee does not object to the interviewer's restatement in the moment, a transcript or recording can later be read as if the interviewee agreed to that wording, even when the reformulation subtly shifted emphasis, tense, or certainty compared to what was originally said.
What distinguishes a neutral reformulation from a leading one?+
A neutral reformulation preserves the content and hedging of the original statement, while a leading reformulation introduces detail, certainty, or framing the interviewee did not supply, which discourse analysts flag as a point where the interviewer's own account may be substituting for the witness's.
Related terms
- Code-Switching
- Shifting between different registers or even different languages within an interaction, often as a signal of role or authority. An interviewer who...
- Institutional Talk
- Conversation that takes place within an institutional context (courtroom, interview room, medical consultation) and is shaped by that context: one participant controls...
- Leading Question
- A question that signals or contains the expected answer. 'You were angry, weren't you?' is leading because the expected answer is embedded....
- Presupposition
- Information built into a question as a taken-for-granted background assumption. Asking 'Why did you go back?' presupposes the person went back. The...
- Turn-Taking Asymmetry
- The structural imbalance in a police interview where the officer holds nearly all the conversational rights: who asks, who answers, when a...