interviewers & interviewees

[stultissimus]

How would you say "interviewer" and "interviewee" in Arabic (either in Levantine dialects or in MSA?) In English it exists in different senses: while discussing media interviews, but also while discussing research interviews (when social scientists or authors of reports interview people to learn about and from their experiences). I looked for an Arabic parallel and couldn't find one (only long expressions consisting of multiple words, which is almost impossible to use in many contexts, e.g. while characterizing the interviewees interviewed for a research project. Any idea? Thanks in advance!

 

[cherine]

I’d say the words differ according to context.
For example:
- In a media context we have مذيع/مذيعة for interviewer and ضيف/ضيفة for interviewee
- The context of a social researcher interviewing people, we can say باحث/ة for the interviewer and (I think) أفراد المقابلة for interviewees
- For a job interview, the interviewer is a مدير or المسؤول عن التعيينات or موظف الموارد البشرية or whatever other relevant term, and the interviewee is المتقدِّم لشغل الوظيفة.

 

[Mahaodeh]

I agree with cherine.

I’d just like to add that technically an interviewer would be مُقابِل and an interviewee would be مُقابَل. I would not use these though unless they are clearly defined because they are not common. People would understand it as a word, but not as a term.

For example, when writing up a research report, you can define them in the beginning and then use them (or one of them) as they would be more convenient. Note that to distinguish them you must use حركات.

Alternatively you can use one (after definition of course), let’s say مقابَل for interviewee, but use a different term for interviewer such as باحث. In this case you would only need حركات in the beginning when defining the terms, but you can skip them later.

That’s just a suggestion.

 

[A. Adama]

I'd like to ask a follow-up question: Is there a natural way to say "interlocutor" (lit. a person who takes part in a conversation) in Arabic? I guess a direct translation would be ‫مُحاوِر‬ but is it used in academic contexts?

In English, you can use "interlocutor" to describe participants in research settings that are less structured or less hierarchical than conventional interviews. For example, in disciplines such as ethnography/ethnology, research is often based on long periods of fieldwork and many informal conversations and interactions – in this context, speaking of the researcher engaging in dialogue with interlocutors is a more accurate description than speaking of interviewees and interviewers. Interviewer/interviewee implies a more ridig dynamic between two people.