L'entretien de recherche avec des personnes ayant une trisomie 21. Spécificités du discours et réflexions sur les soutiens

The pragmatic use of language by young people with Down's syndrome is studied through the analysis of some research interviews that were part of a more extensive study 1 . Three main types of speech are identified: interviewee vs interviewer-managed discourse; discourse produced in dialogue. Their properties are compared with each other and illustrated using brief extracts from the verbatim reports. The results show that interviewee-managed discourse usually characterizes the beginning of the interview, while discourse produced in dialogue occurs when the person with Down's syndrome is answering a question which s/he is particularly interested in or when s/he is sharing a personal story. Interviewer-managed discourse would seem to indicate that the interviewees need time to enter into dialogue. These results show that the depth of the interview is due to mutual interactions.