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Article published In: Applied Narratology
Edited by Sjoerd-Jeroen Moenandar, Laura Karttunen and Anna Ovaska
[Narrative Inquiry 34:2] 2024
► pp. 307–334

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The structured narrative interview

ORCiD logo with link | University of Groningen
ORCiD logo with link | Campus Orleon
 | University of Groningen
 | University of Groningen
 | University of Groningen
ORCiD logo with link | University of Groningen
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with University of Groningen.

Published online: 26 April 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.23079.moe
In this study, Greimas’s work on narrative structure is used to improve a specific practice: the research interview. In the social sciences, narrative interviewing often consists of collecting data from which a narrative is then constructed through analysis afterwards. In the interview method presented here, the interviewer instead prompts the interviewee to construct a narrative. We introduce the method, contextualize it by comparing it to previous and contemporary interview methods, and illustrate it with a small, sociolinguistic study: students (n = 12) from a humanities faculty and a science and engineering faculty at a Dutch university were interviewed about experiences with the use of different languages than the language of instruction in an international learning environment. The method allowed for smooth data collection, due to its narratively structured questioning and consequent rich data. Moreover, using narrative structures to guide the interview also facilitated easy analysis and comparison of the stories.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The interview as research method
    • From neutral conduit to construction site
    • The interview as a narrative environment
  • The structured narrative interview
  • Pilot study
    • Context, aims and research set-up
    • Results: Four types of translanguaging stories
      • 1.Prohibiting translanguaging leads to discomfort
      • 2.Translanguaging makes things less formal
      • 3.Suddenly, it’s okay to translanguage
      • 4.Translanguaging can be good
    • Discussion
  • Concluding remarks
  • References
References (42)
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