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Quote susan53

if the police have already questioned Bob they must know where he is.

Hi susan,

What's the difference between 'to interview, to question and to interrogate a suspect' here?

Thank you very much for your great explanation.

[susan53]

"to interview" can be used for any question/answer conversation - eg a job interview; a TV news interview with a politician, an actor, someone involved in a news event; police questioning a witness or a suspect; etc. It could be quite friendly or not, depending on the situation.

"to question" on the other hand suggests a critical stance. Some examples :
...when a reporter once QUESTIONED Lincoln in cryptic fashion, Lincoln refused to make any further statement.
...Pohl confessed the arson while being QUESTIONED about several fires in the Westphalia area.
...Government attorneys, Leavitt said, have QUESTIONED him closely about "five or six loans".

It's not relevant here, but "to question" also has the second meaning of "expressed doubts about" reinforcing the "critical" connotation.
...Lewis and Maund (1979) have QUESTIONED the true significance of social class,
...The governor was not used to having his integrity QUESTIONED.
...(The new passport) is essentially a travel document whose validity has been QUESTIONED by a number of countries.

"to interrogate" suggests that the questioning was "stronger" - possibly that it went on for longer, the questions were harsher etc. Example:
...Kenneth Starr and his deputies INTERROGATED Hillary Clinton for several hours at the White House [/b][/b]

"to interrogate" would also be chosen in a situation where threats, physical violence or torture were involved. Examples :
...The regime has INTERROGATED and imprisoned hundreds of dissidents.
...In the room there was no bed or mattress; nothing. Every day we were INTERROGATED and beaten.

All examples from https://lextutor.ca/conc/eng/

[fface]

Quote susan53

"to question" on the other hand suggests a critical stance.

Hi susan,

Could you please explain what 'a critical stance' refers to?
Could you also please give some examples of 'question' when used in a situation that the police question suspects with suggesting a critical stance?

Thank you very much.

[susan53]

I'm not completely sure what you mean here. It doesn't "refer to" anything. Was your question really "What does it mean?" ? If so, it means to adopt an attitude of potential suspicion or doubt towards something (in our case, the suspect). In other words that they were not necessarily going to believe what they said.

As I said - the verb to question automatically involves this type of attitude. Even if the police are questioning a witness, or even a victim, they have to allow for the possibility that the person is mistaken (witnesses aren't always reliable) or even lying. Just saying : The police questioned the suspect/witness/victim about XXX inevitably suggests that they were open to the possibility that what they heard was not true.

[fface]

Hi susan,

Do 'close in on someone' and 'zero in on someone' mean the same thing here in the example above? The phrase 'zero in on...' also appears in the video at 26:59.

Many thanks.

[susan53]

In the video, yes it's the same.

You can "zero in on" someone or something, meaning to focus/concentrate on, or investigate closely. So eg

1. In the Africa bombings manhunt both magazines ZERO IN ON Osama Bin Laden the technosavvy multimillionaire Saudi exile living in Afghanistan (see here)

2. Instead Chatterbox ZEROED IN ON the two years when Gore cast considerably more votes considered anti environment by the LCV than he did in other years (see here)

3. The Wall Street Journal's The Outlook column ZEROES IN ON the closest thing to a storm cloud in the current economic forecast - the stunning erosion of lending standards (see here)