Interlocutor
In colloquial use, an interlocutor (IPA: /ɪntɚlakjutɚ/) is simply someone taking part in a conversation.
The term also has several other specialized uses:
- In politics, it describes someone who informally explains the views of a government and also can relay messages back to a government. Unlike a spokesperson, an interlocutor often has no formal position within a government or any formal authority to speak on its behalf, and even when he does, everything an interlocutor says is his own personal opinion and not the official view of anyone. Because an interlocutor does not express an official view, communications between interlocutors are often useful at conveying information and ideas. Often interlocutors will talk with each other before formal negotiations. Interlocutors play an extremely important role in Sino-American relations.
- In music, it was the term for the master of ceremonies in a minstrel show. A blackface character, like the other performers, the interlocutor nonetheless had a somewhat aristocratic demeanor, a "codfish aristocrat".[1]
- It is also the name given in Scots law to the formal order of the court.
References
Citations
- [1] Lott, Eric. Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class, Oxford University Press, 1993, ISBN 0-19-509641-X. p. 153