Analysing the language of interviews

Sponsored by ESRC

This workshop for Qualitative Research practitioners, sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council, focuses on how we can analyse the language of research transcripts to develop insights and improve interviewing and moderating practice. We give an overview of studies of interview talk, and then focus on one particular aspect of this talk, the choices people have in expressing their own relation to a topic, or stance. We argue that thinking about the details of how people take stances can help one understand effects of the interviewer's questions, subtle shadings of response, and the problems of sensitive topics.

The workshop is designed both for researchers who already use one or another aspect of discourse analysis, and those who take other approaches and who are just considering whether some of these techniques might usefully supplement what they already do. There will be time at the beginning of the workshop for participants to introduce their way of working. Most of the afternoon is devoted to workshops in which participants use checklists to do their own analysis of excerpts from interview transcripts.

1:00 – Introductions – participants say how they have used discourse analysis
1:30 – Toolkit from studies of interview talk – a brief introduction
2:00 – Exercise on analysing transcripts
2:45 – Coffee 3:00 – Toolkit on analysing stance
3:30 – Exercise on analysing stance in transcripts
4:30 – Concordances, qualitative software, and other tools for analysis of transcripts
5:00 – Finish

Cost: £20

Contact: Sofia Lampropoulou at s.lampropoulou@lancaster.ac.uk