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7 - Semi-Structured Interviews

from Part 2 - Direct Methods of Attitude Elicitation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 June 2022

Ruth Kircher
Affiliation:
Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning, and Fryske Akademy, Netherlands
Lena Zipp
Affiliation:
Universität Zürich
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Summary

This chapter shows how semi-structured interviews can contribute to the study of language attitudes. It pays particular attention to how understanding interviews as contextually and socially situated speech events, shaped by the spatial and temporal context in which they take place and the relationship between interviewer(s) and interviewee(s), is crucial for the analysis and interpretation of interview data. It addresses the strengths of using interviews to investigate attitudes (e.g. that they may bring to light new information, new topics, and new dimensions to established knowledge) as well as their limitations (e.g. that participants may say what they believe the interviewer wants to hear or agree with the interviewer’s questions, regardless of their content). Following a discussion of the key practical issues of planning and research design including constructing an interview protocol, choosing the language or variety to use in the interview, and presenting multiple languages or varieties in interview transcripts, it explains how the qualitative data resulting from semi-structured interviews can be analysed thematically. The chapter ends with an illustration of interview methodology on the basis of a case study of attitudes towards Cypriot Greek in London’s Greek Cypriot diaspora.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • Semi-Structured Interviews
  • Edited by Ruth Kircher, Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning, and Fryske Akademy, Netherlands, Lena Zipp, Universität Zürich
  • Book: Research Methods in Language Attitudes
  • Online publication: 25 June 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108867788.010
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  • Semi-Structured Interviews
  • Edited by Ruth Kircher, Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning, and Fryske Akademy, Netherlands, Lena Zipp, Universität Zürich
  • Book: Research Methods in Language Attitudes
  • Online publication: 25 June 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108867788.010
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Semi-Structured Interviews
  • Edited by Ruth Kircher, Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning, and Fryske Akademy, Netherlands, Lena Zipp, Universität Zürich
  • Book: Research Methods in Language Attitudes
  • Online publication: 25 June 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108867788.010
Available formats
×