Colloquia - British Association for Applied Linguistics

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BAAL Conference 2004 37 th Annual BAAL Meeting d.block@ioe.ac.uk 1) General abstract Over the past two decades, there has been a noteworthy increase in the number of applied linguistics researchers publishing work which we might define as ethnographically oriented. In this ethnographically oriented work, the chief aim of researchers is often to gain understandings of language practices via sustained contact with participants in these practices. Such contact generally involves three types of data collection: documentary, observational (including the audio and video recording of speech events) and interview. While there is no way to establish which of these data sources has become the most popular among researchers, there certainly can be little doubt that the amount of research based either in part or entirely on interviews has increased notably in recent years. Historically, there have been at least two general discourses of interviewing. On the one had there is the textbook discourse of interviewing, often in the form of 'how to' or 'do's and don'ts'. This is the discourse of general texts on research methods, although in recent years most texts have begun to get away from this prescriptive, mechanistic and instrumentalist view of research interviews (see relevant chapters in Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2000; Robson, 2002). A second discourse of interviewing is one which historically has questioned the textbook view of interviews as being about information transfer and what Kvale (1996) calls the 'mining' metaphor. From Cicourel (1964) to Briggs (1986) and Mischler (1986) to Kvale (1996), we see attempts to problematise interviews and to take Burgess's (1984) view of 'interviews as conversations' seriously. This colloquium is about the second discourse of interviewing. It is about how four researchers working in different applied linguistics contexts have come to view interviews as social events, and as such, as complex problematic processes. References: Briggs, C. (1986) Learning How to Ask. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Burgess, R. (1984) In the Field: An Introduction to Field Research. London: Routledge. Cicourel, A. (1964) Method and Measurement in Sociology. New York; Free Press. Cohen, L, L. Manion and K. Morrison (2000) Research Methods in Education, 5th edition. London: Routledge. Kvale, S. (1996) InterViews: An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing. London: Sage. Mishler, E. (1986) Research Interviewing. Cambridge: MA: Harvard Univeristy Press. Robson, C. (2002) Research in the Real World, 2nd edition. Oxford: Blackwell. 2) Individual contributions The problem with teaching interviewing Dr. David Block School of Culture, Language and Communication, Institute of Education, University of London d.block@ioe.ac.uk Over the past eight years, I have taught sessions on research interviews to research students at the Institute of Education. In addition, I have given a fair number of talks on the topic at conferences and as an invited speaker at universities. In my contacts with research students attending these session and talks, I find that again and again I come back to the same theme, namely that interviewing cannot be taught as a skill, per se, and that it is for the most part an emergent craft, dependent on a combination of experience and common sense and sensitivity. Unfortunately, saying this to research students does not always go down very well. In this talk, I look at some of the sources of the conflict between my view of research interviews and the views manifested by some of my students. These include general research texts (e.g. Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2002; Robson, 2002), which tend to frame interviewing as a technical skill, and a naïve positivist philosophy of science, which many students bring to the task of interviewing. My aim in this talk is to discuss these and other sources of conflict, how they are manifested and how I deal with them. References: Cohen, L, L. Manion and K. Morrison (2000) Research Methods in Education, 5th edition. London: Routledge. Robson, C. (2002) Research in the Real World, 2nd edition. Oxford: Blackwell. On-line interviewing: a researcher's journey Paul Borg Gifu Keizai Unversity, Japan borg@ogaki-tv.ne.jp Clearly, the advent of "online communication" has opened new and exciting data-gathering opportunities for the researcher. Internet "search engines" provide gateways to a veritable Pandora's King‟s College, London 9 – 11 th - 40 - September, 2004
BAAL Conference 2004 37 th Annual BAAL Meeting box of information sources? whether book references, full-length articles, or official government documents in PDF format. E-mail is now widely recognised as the quickest and most cost-effective method of disseminating large numbers of survey questionnaires. What is sometimes not fully appreciated, however, is the extent to which correspondence by e-mail can offer the researcher a satisfying alternative to the face-to-face interview as a means of collecting in-depth, high-quality subjective data. Against this background, I shall discuss my own personal experiences conducting interviews (and, in certain cases, engaging in what may even be described as "dialogues") through the medium of e-mail. I shall try to present an honest account of the entire research process, from the recruitment of participants to the presentation of hard data. In so doing, I shall outline not only some of the practical advantages of e-mail as I perceive them, but also highlight some of the challenges, ethical concerns, psychological dilemmas and occasional failures I was forced to come to terms with. To provide some indication of how my research project was embraced by those who agreed to act as participants-namely, foreign teachers based in Japanese schools under the auspices of the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme--I shall present some actual examples of participant feedback. Moments of tension? Insights from meta-language in interviews Frances Rock English and Modern Languages, Digby Stuart College University of Surrey Roehampton f.rock@roehampton.ac.uk This paper is motivated by the concern, shared by others on the panel, that researchers cannot sensibly take data collected through interviews as simply, or even necessarily, recording interviewees' perspectives. Briggs has called for this concern to be addressed through scrutiny of interview transcripts (1986:4) and, particularly, through attention to different orientations of interviewer and interviewee (1986:47). The paper begins by briefly taking stock of responses to Briggs' call. It then reacts to that call, in turn, by examining data collected during two rather different sets of research interviews. I was a constant across each set, as I participated in each interview. In the first set of interviews I was joined by police officers for discussion of linguistic practices which they used routinely at work. In the second set, in contrast, I was joined by people detained in police custody who discussed linguistic artefacts and situations which were less routine and in some cases completely new to them. This mixture of interactions with institutional 'insiders' and 'outsiders' and with interviewees with very different routes to the interview room, provides fertile ground for an examination of the diversity of orientations to what might, at first, appear a fairly homogeneous interview setting. The paper explores this diversity, by seeking moments of tension, manifest through meta-language and meta-linguistic exchanges on the surface of the interview transcript, which illuminate the emergent and unstable dynamic beneath. The paper therefore offers a data-based perspective which attempts to see interviews for what they are, communicative events in their own right, as well as recognising what they can offer, particular kinds of insight grounded in the interview context. Reference: Briggs, C. (1986) Learning How to Ask. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Facilitation Style in Focus Group Interviews Professor Greg Myers Linguistics and Modern English Language, Lancaster University g.meyers@lancs.ac.uk Handbooks on conducting focus groups give various suggestions for the moderator or facilitator who gets the discussion going and keeps it on the topics of interest to the researchers. But these suggestions tend to be general and prescriptive; there is little consideration of the range of possible kinds of discussion within the focus group format, or of the implications of this range for analysis of the discussion or use of the findings. This paper draws on conversation analytical studies of interviews and focus groups to consider the possible effects of differences in focus group facilitation, from what might be called more interventionist to what might be called more responsive styles. The analysis deals with transcripts of ten groups by two facilitators, and considers questions, prompts, receipts, formulations, and information turns from the facilitator, and responses, challenges, and questions from the participants. The finding is not a simple correlation of the facilitator's technique and the results, and certainly not a prescription of one most effective style. Instead the analysis shows how the ongoing discussion, including contributions of both the facilitator and the participants, opens up and closes off possible kinds of talk. King‟s College, London 9 – 11 th - 41 - September, 2004
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