The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new aspect-interview as communication-to the study of life history and interview research. Using data obtained in my fieldwork, I explore the communication process between the interviewer and his informant during an interview.
First, through communication with an interviewer, informants experience catharsis. The informant unifies self-image through retrospection and talking about his/her emotions and thoughts. Secondly, informants are able to gain new knowledge and perspectives about themselves through the communication process with interviewers.
In this paper, three issues in the communication process of interviews are analyzed, namely, the expression of catharsis, representation of meaning and interpretation of data.