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"I think we can learn a lot about a person in the very moment that language fails them. In the very moment that they have to be more creative than they would have imagined in order to communicate. It’s the very moment that they have to dig deeper than the surface to find words, and at the same time, it’s a moment when they want to communicate very badly. They’re digging deep and projecting out at the same time…I am able to study a person’s language and breaths very carefully because I can record it, and listen to it over and over again. I think it’s about finding that moment when syntax changes, when grammar breaks down. Those are the moments I should study, if I want to know who a person is."
"How much time do you have?" she said.
"You mean now?"
"When you do an interview, how much time do you have?"
"Oh, I don’t know, about an hour, or forty-five minutes. Seldom more than an hour."
"I can give you three questions that will ensure that their syntax will change in the course of an hour." She had one of those wonderfully efficient and confident vocal tones that people like linguists and anthropologists have. Sometimes they are as direct as accountants are.
I, of course, will never forget this part of the conversation. She stated the questions, quickly. I was writing as fast as I could.
"One is, Have you ever come close to death?"
"Okay."
"Another is, Do you know the circumstances of your birth?"
"Interesting."
"The third is, Have you ever been accused of something that you did not do?"
She went on to say that sometimes asking people about their first day of school is a good one too.
-- Anna Deveare Smith, Talk to Me: Travels in Media and Politics
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