Análisis de las acciones de la casa matriz

Triangulating data from multiple sources allows researchers to “investigate the research problem from different perspectives in order to provide possibly more complex and ideally more valid insights” into phenomena of interest (Duff, 2008a, p. 144). Firstly, evidence can be corroborated and augmented, as similar instances are identified across various data sources. Conversely, contradictions and disjunctions emerging from different kinds of data are equally important findings, as they are often conducive to generating new perspectives and understandings (Duff, 2008a). Based on these insights my project includes three data sources: semi-structured individual interviews, written reflections, and a creative drawing. I will describe my reasons for choosing these sources, as well as the procedures of data collection for each source in turn.

5.2.2.1 Interviews. In defining the purpose of interviewing, authors frequently stress the

potential that lies in gaining access to dimensions of experience that are otherwise not easily observable (Merriam, 2009). Since exploring realms such as memories, thoughts, imaginations, feelings, and bodily perceptions is essential to my intention of investigating multilingualism

and processes of learning German as subjective experience, I chose the individual research interview as a main data source.

It is important that from a social-constructionist viewpoint, research interviewing has been reconceptualized as a discursive accomplishment, where participants and researchers “render events and experiences meaningful – collaboratively” (Riessman, 2008, p. 23). Referring to Mishler (1986), Riessman (2008) points out how, in this view, “The model of a ‘facilitating’ interviewer who asks questions, and a vessel-like ‘respondent’ who gives answers, is replaced by two active participants who jointly construct narrative and meaning” (p. 23, emphasis in original). The narratives that are elicited through research interviews are a product of co-construction: “Through our presence, and by listening and questioning in particular ways, we critically shape the stories participants choose to tell” (Riessman, 2008, p. 50). I chose a semi-structured interview format as it allowed me to flexibly follow participants’ trails of thought, while at the same time, the interview guide served to ensure that topics relevant to the theoretical frame of the study would not be missed.

Between one and three interviews were conducted with each participant, ranging from 45 to 120 minutes for the first, and 20 minutes to three hours for follow-up interviews, depending on participants’ time and talkativeness. Interviewing generally took place in offices or multi-purpose rooms in the department, in the absence of others and free of distractions, recorded with an unobtrusive digital voice recorder. Prior to the first interview, participants indicated on the electronic questionnaire whether they had a preference to be interviewed in English or German, while the form indicated that the use of any language(s) was welcome at any time (see appendix B).

The initial interview served to inquire about participants’ general experience of learning and growing up with German, living with more than one language, and what their ‘background’ meant to them. As no similar study was known to me, from which I could have derived a set of interview questions, I designed my own interview guide of open-ended questions (see appendix D), inspired by the perspectives associated with the so-called ‘multilingual turn’ outlined in chapter 3. It targeted three main areas: a) questions related to the personal history, contexts, and future imaginings concerning participants’ language(s) use; b) questions targeting experiences of learning, growing up, and living with more than one language with a focus on participants’ sense of self; and c) questions aiming at participants’ construction of their ‘heritage,’ and linguistic/cultural spaces.24

As narrative interviews are characterized through a broad, yet topic-specific introductory question, which is meant to elicit the participant’s key narrative (Lucius-Hoene & Deppermann, 2002), I opened the first interview by asking participants how they had learned and developed the languages they had specified as languages they can “currently speak to some extent” in the electronic questionnaire. Follow-up questions, then, were inspired by the participants’ narrative and the interview guide.

Based on participants’ availability and preliminary analyses of minimally transcribed initial interviews, I conducted follow-up interviews with eight participants, which comprised follow-up questions resulting from the first interview, the creation of the language portrait (see below), and a final question on how the participant would likely feel about being referred to as a heritage speaker or heritage language learner of German (for more details about interview procedures, see appendix D).

5.2.2.2 Language Portraits. As part of follow-up interviewing, participants were invited

to create a language portrait – an invitation that all accepted readily. They were given an empty body silhouette, which they were asked to modify using coloured pencils, in order to represent ‘who they are in terms of language’ (see appendix F for details).

My use of the language portrait was inspired by Busch’s (2012) promotion of language portraits as a multimodal “means of eliciting explanations regarding language practices, resources, and attitudes […which] acts at the same time as a point of reference” (p. 511). She elaborates: “The visual mode steers one’s vision toward the whole (the Gestalt) and towards the relationality of the parts” (p. 518). Furthermore, “in the visual mode contradiction, fractures, overlappings, and ambiguities can also remain unresolved” (p. 518), i.e., this mode of expression allows the narrator to convey meanings in a non-sequential manner and capture tensions and contradictions in ways that words cannot.

In this study, the portrait offered an alternative way of pinpointing connections between different aspects of individual participants’ development as language users on the one hand, and their perception of self, others, and intimate relationships across different phases of their biography. Targeting the shifting nature of subjectivities, I asked them to imagine what alternate versions of their portrait may look like that would reflect different phases of their lives (for a description of the exact procedure of creating the portrait, see appendix F). Given how the portrait can make things “seeable” that are not “sayable,” as Riessman (2008, p. 143) puts it, rather than merely using it as a point of reference in interviewing, I considered the portrait as part of participants’ narratives – i.e., as data – in the process of analysis.

5.2.2.3 Written reflection. Like interviews, written reflections can provide insight into

different insights, and much more affectively charged ones, than the same [participants’] interview comments did in a case study of teachers’ beliefs and experiences […]” (Duff, 2008a, p. 79). Thus, the written component in the present project was mainly chosen to facilitate my exploration of links between language phenomena and the comparatively personal aspects concerning self-perception, emotions, desires, and dynamics in intimate relationships.25

Furthermore, I opted for a written component because this format gives participants more time for reflection before they provide their perspective on specific issues. This allows insights to mature that may not have evolved under the pressure of having to respond immediately during and audio-recorded interview session. It also allows the researcher to study participants’ ‘full account’ on a specific issue without interfering with further questions. In sum, it offers an alternative mode of jointly constructing meanings that operates on a decelerated time-scale, potentially resulting in more carefully considered propositions on the sides of participant and researcher.

Initially, I had planned to ask only those individuals for written reflections who had been selected for in-depth study, hence questions in this component did not overlap with the interview questions but were aimed at gaining in-depth insight into certain aspects of participants’ experience. Empirical work being notoriously messy, I soon opted for a more flexible approach. For practical reasons,26 _{I opened the component to all participants, allowing} them to submit reflections before, after, or independently of oral interviewing. They chose one

25 _{Since people were contacting me from across Canada and even Europe, those from outside of the region were}

informed, however, that participating by creating written reflections was possible from the distance. Though many people conveyed an interest in this form of distant participation, the number of submitted written reflections was ultimately limited to three participants, as my efforts were not focused on following up with the comparatively large number of potential distant participants, given my priority to obtain high quality data through the multimodal interview.

of three questions for reflection (see appendix E). Of the eight participants included for analysis only one submitted a written account.