Qualitative Interview Research in Multilingual Contexts: A Comparative Discussion of Language-Related Decisions in Two Empirical Studies

Research settings are often multilingual in the sense that researchers and participants speak different first languages. This should be explicitly considered in qualitative research in order to enable or facilitate communication, promote understanding, and allow for context-sensitive analyses of intent and meaning.

In this article we comparatively address methodological considerations in two research projects conducted in Austria and Germany. Based on the project-specific context, research interests, sampling strategies, and participants, we developed different methodological approaches to address the respective settings and linguistic needs. We argue that there is no generic guideline but aim to provide orientation for context-specific project design. Based on the assumption that in every research endeavor, a contextualized strategy needs to be developed for the entire project from idea development and project design to the dissemination of results, we highlight language-related decisions throughout qualitative research projects.