Dealing with the transnational complexity of the research settings represented a major part of the research process. The presence of multiple languages in this qualitative re- search process was one major challenge through the entire study. German and Swedish were used during observations and interviews; English for the literature and writing; and Spanish in the Chilean context. Considering the complexity of moving across lan- guages, it is of utter importance to discuss how the research was conducted, as well as issues concerning validity. This complexity is, however, neither frequently debated nor normally mentioned in text books on methodology. On the contrary, it is viewed as a rather unremarkable aspect of the research process or works (Temple and Young, 2004), even though there has been a move towards reflection in fieldwork in the last decade (Martin-Jones and Martin, 2016). I question the invisibility of this topic, given the importance that language has in research, and call for major inclusion in the research process of this issue to further our understanding of some of the dynamics involved. Language is a key constitutive part of research, since most research takes place through language: interviews, observations, text data, all of which are communicated through language. Pictures and illustrations can also be seen as language.
Multiple roles of languages in the research process can be identified, adding a reflection dimension, especially regarding translation (Enzenhofer and Resch, 2013), but also in other aspects. Cultural and ideological contexts behind languages cannot be ignored either. Hoping for a future major emphasis on this issue, the research process in this study including multiple languages will thus be described in detail below, providing an
insight into the challenges encountered in the methodological as well as the analytical processes.
Methodological aspects
In research processes including multiple languages, methodological aspects regarding those languages and their role in the research should be monitored. These methodo- logical challenges have gained attention in recent decades (Squires, 2009), even though a structured framework is still missing. Two main methodological aspects re- garding the handling of the languages could be identified during the research process of this study:
1) language challenges deriving from language skills on different levels, both concern- ing the researcher and other participants; how communication should take place; and 2) in the interpretation context: how data should be handled (should it be translated or not and if - when?) and thus analyzed and finally communicated to people outside of the research project.
1. Challenges through language skills
Regarding the first aspect, conducting interviews and observations in another language than the mother tongue was part of the challenge (Kruse et al., 2012). One crucial pre- condition in order to be able to conduct empirical research, especially in schools, is to understand the language. Phillips and Schweisfurth (2011) emphasize that for qualita- tive studies the comparative and international researcher needs to master the language in the given country as well as be familiar with the school contexts that are compared. I have this knowledge of the implied languages (see Section 4.7.6) which enabled this study. Thus, this aspect did not constitute a major challenge for the field work. Instead, the second aspect called for major consideration as I experienced a limitation in the writing process in English, which will be discussed below.
2. Translation in research including multiple languages
Later in the research process, a second challenge arose regarding the practical aspects: the question of whether or not the collected data in the various languages, such as the interviews, should be translated into one language for the analysis; and, if yes, when. Qualitative social research is especially sensitive to the translation problem, since it mainly deals with open questions, giving space for individual ways of expression and communication dynamics (Bohnsack, 2014). In addition, social science often compares
practice and discourse in different languages and cultures (Adick, 2008b, p. 49), and it is important not to overlook the potential problem of an insensibility to specific national and cultural contexts (Bryman, 2012).
The predominant model in the majority of previous research projects involving multiple languages is, however, to ignore issues involving translation. Results are often pre- sented as if researchers and participants were all fluent (Temple and Young, 2004), even though more often the final product after translation can be considered a trans- muted text (Halai, 2007). Through translations, many choices need to be considered and in such a process a “cultural filtering” (Thome, 2012, p. 294) is distinguishable. I have thus chosen to address the issue of multiple languages in the research process, since it composes such an important part of the study. My many years of experience in the translation field will probably have given me a greater sensibility to this issue as well.
Moving across languages
In this study, the movements across languages took the following forms: first, I dis- cussed the topic of this project with my supervisor and other academics at the University of Education in Weingarten. In the initial phase, the literature was mostly read in German and Swedish and then later, in English, since it became clearer that the thesis would be in in English. The reason for writing in English was routed by the wish that people in the three countries involved in the study should be able to read about the project. Writing it in German would have excluded the majority of interested readers in Sweden and Chile, as well as some of the participants. Nevertheless I share some of the present fears of many that English is taking over as an academic language (Norrby, 2015; Mittelstrass
et al., 2016) and I believe that research should be written in other languages as well.
Even so, writing in either only German or Swedish was not a feasible option for the present study. The abstract is, however, given in English, German, Swedish and Span- ish, enabling those without English knowledge to gain an insight into the topics investi- gated.
Language use depended on the other person’s life-world languages as well as the situ- ations. Discussions with the German supervisor took part in German, with the Swedish assistant supervisor in Swedish, and communication between the three of us was in German or English. In Chile, it depended on their preferences: German was mainly used with Germans and Spanish with Chileans, but within the context of the German school, German was mainly used, especially with teaching personnel. Peer-debriefing was
done in German, English, Swedish and Spanish with numerous colleagues on several occasions.22 Having all this in mind, this project has been multilingual in several aspects.
However, it has to be indicated, that even if I have a high level of these languages,23 the
fact that German is not my mother tongue might have led to different interpretations than if it had been.
Writing in English was also a major challenge since academic writing, in every language, has its own conventions and is not the same as everyday language. I felt limited in my writing, unable to find the relevant words or not recognizing the nuances of meaning in the words that did occur to me. I spent uncountable hours looking up terminology24 and
sought help among friends and colleagues. Nevertheless, the possibility of being pre- sent in all the countries in classroom observations and conducting interviews without any interpreter was of high value for the research and enabled to react rapidly in those situations.
Translation procedure
“Each translation produces ambiguity” (Przyborski and Wohlrab-Sahr, 2014, p. 309), and “[s]uch interpretation processes are time-consuming, at the same time highly inter- esting: through them one learns not only about the other language, but also about one- self and one’s own culture” (ibid. p. 315). To that I would like to add, that one also learns how to experience the external world, one’s own language and culture, which are filtered through your previous experiences.
Enzenhofer and Resch (2011) further point to the importance of well-done translations in order to not distort the meaning. Translations are never an easy task, since there is a “a global relationship, unique and unrepeatable for each textual binomial and, of course, for every translation action” (Rabadán, 1991). Adding the cultural aspects in this study increased the difficulties. It has to be kept in mind as well, that translation itself can be considered an interpretative act, which is the taken stance in this study. Already in choosing the words in the other language, an interpretation is done. Why one word
22 More information on the peer-debriefing in Section 4.7.4. 23 See Section 4.7.6.
24 The major tools were on internet and the following pages were visited almost every day: LEO – online
dictionary EN/DE (www.leo.org/englisch-deutsch/), Merriam Webster – online dictionary EN (www.merriam-webster.com), NE online dictionary EN/SV (ne.ord.se) and different websites for syn- onyms such as www.thesaurus.com. The website Linguee (www.linguee.de) proved to be of im- portance as well, in providing previous translations.
and not the other? The intention of the translations in the present study has been to use an instrumental translation (Wettermann, 2012), trying to adapt the statement to the target language culture. The goal was that it should not be noticeable that it is a trans- lation, by adding equivalences of the text in its intercultural representation. A culture- specific explication was thus added if needed.
In the translation procedure, two main processes can be outlined (Bucholtz, 2000): in-
terpretative and representative. The interpretative process deals with choices pertaining
to content, and includes perceptions of linguistic and paralinguistic cues. The repre- sentative (or technical) process deals with choice of form, and refers to the actual sym- bols with which verbal and non-verbal elements are conveyed. Each process implicates the other, they are not separate units. In this study, the emphasis is put on the interpre- tative process, since the meaning and beliefs behind the words and linguistic symbols are the significant.
The fact that the researcher and the translator was the same person in this study facili- tated the translation, since I had been present during the original statements. I never- theless became increasingly aware of the problems of conceptual equivalences (Cross- ley and Watson, 2003, p. 32) during the study. German terms and definitions are gen- erally more specified then English and Swedish ones, which in several cases led to the detailed definitions of different terms. This study has used a wider conceptualization than what might have been used in a ‘pure’ German study.
A further challenge when translating consists of retaining the characteristics (Duktus in German) and conceptual meaning, of the statement, as already mentioned, since trans- lated words often do not translate exactly and rarely have the same nuances. In the case that the translation differed from the word meaning in the original language, this has been clarified.
Another significant issue for translation is that not only a formal language competence is important, but also a life-world experience (Przyborski and Wohlrab-Sahr, 2014). Di- alectal coloring, connotations, insinuations are further important factors in language communication. As an example from this study, the Swedish word flerspråkig can be mentioned. It means ‘multilingual’ in general Swedish, but for a Swedish teacher, it will mostly indicate a newly-arrived student, who does not yet speak Swedish.
One more practical challenge was also present, regarding literature references as well as quotations from the material: which language would be used? Including only the orig- inal language was not an option if it was Swedish or Spanish, due to the fact that I was writing in English, but how should I refer to the original text, only including the translation or both the original statement and the translation? Here I finally opted for two ap- proaches. For literature references, due to space issues I have chosen to give only the translation. For the quotations from the material, I have chosen to use the translations in the text and give the translation in the appendix. This decision was taken due to the fact that the quotations can be longer and the number of quotations is high in the find- ings chapter; an inclusion of the translations in the footnotes here would have impeded fluent reading.
The material was maintained in the original language until the final analysis. First, after clarifying which statements were to be included in the study, the translation of those into English took place, even though some of the Swedish parts were translated earlier into German and English for the working in research groups (see Section 4.7.4). Translating the entire material into all those three languages would have been too time-consuming and not added any extra value to the research process, since I was the only researcher present during the entire project and I had the language knowledge of the involved lan- guages.
As previously mentioned, after having translated the selected parts of the material, I left the translations for a period of time and later returned to them in order to review them with fresh eyes. In the final phase of the writing, the translations were reviewed by oth- ers. The whole process was time-consuming, but reflects the multilingual setting of the study and was an essential feature.
To conclude, it has to be stated that the presence of multiple languages stimulated a deeper reflection on the data. Several considerations were monitored, especially in methodological aspects, such as how the presence of languages should be dealt with, but also in analytical aspects, such as the validity of translated data. Considering the growing globalization of research, the importance of such reflections cannot be denied and should be given major emphasis in research processes including multiple lan- guages.