How to interview

© PICTURE 2006
HOW to INTERVIEW using a questionnaire

1. GOALS	2. OTHER OPTIONS	3. PREDICTIONS	4. INTERVIEWEES	5. 1st OUTING	6. 2nd OUTING
Two Dutch students conducting a ”cultural viewpoints” interview of a British man in front of the University of Amsterdam, February 2006. The complete video of the interview, plus one with another pair of students, is on the CD furnished with this course under Model Interviews.

GOALS: First, decide who you want to interview and what you want to investigate.. ↑

This course suggests interviewing “native speakers” of the language you are studying (or have studied), in order to investigate their cultural values.

Who counts as “native speakers”? Native speakers of a certain language are those who, from childhood, use one of the accepted varieties of that language. They must also satisfy another condition which, being complex, will be explained later. If you learn these two conditions, you will know who to interview and who not to interview, from among the various tourists you meet. For a full explanation of the term “native speaker”, plus suggestions for finding some in your home town, skip to Section 4.-Interviewees – or just continue reading up to section 4.
What are “cultural values”? Cultural values are the principles that guide the everyday life of people in a community, and the ensuing attitudes that colour their words and behaviour. People acquire cultural values during their infancy. According to the society they grow up in – explains the sociologist G. Hofstede – they learn that it is “normal”: ● to address elders with respect or to address them as equals (or in some other way); ● to see outsiders as brothers or as partners or competitors (or in some other way); ● to consider emotions as worth showing or as something to be hidden (or otherwise); ● to plan for events in detail or to let events happen and then improvise (or a mixture); and so on. Each value is strikingly different from its alternative; but each is seen as “right” and “normal” by whoever has learned it from infancy. Learned it how? Through slaps and rebukes as a child and then -- as an adult – through social pressure of various kinds. See the video Littering on your CD (or, if you are on the Internet, here: the file is 2 MB). It shows a young French woman strolling through Amsterdam, a place where it is considered highly offensive to “litter”, i.e. to throw refuse on the street, and where many people feel the duty to teach others their community's principles and attitudes (here “Let order prevail!”). After viewing the video, describe each person's principles and attitudes – the ones that explain why they expressed themselves as they did (through their body language) and why they behaved as they did. Then say what this incident might teach us about intercultural understanding. Write on your comments down on a sheet of paper and then discuss them in class. After you finish writing, read here below a few remarks on the video Littering. (To read it, highlight the area INSIDE the purple rectangle. Do as you do when you copy text: hold down the left mouse key and pass the cursor over the entire area.)
The young French woman shrugs off the young man's rebuke – and why not? “After all,” she thinks, “he's the odd one, not me! A hygiene fanatic!” In her culture, not to litter is a personal choice, not a community imposition. Personal choices are not based on mechanical rules, but rather on spontaneous feelings. In Paris, a young Frenchman might also have picked up her discarded cigarette pack, but only as a pretext for stopping her and chatting her up. But not in Amsterdam! “Here,” the young woman thinks, “men never look at you, only at the cigarette packs you leave one on the street. They seem to have concerns more than feelings. They feel concerned about their salvation if they are religious, about their good standing if they aren't, about their community's welfare in any case. But they don't live their whims! No, this city's out!” The young Dutch man shrugs his shoulders, in an attempt to forget the unpleasant incident. “How could that young French-looking woman have been so offensive?” he muses. “In the name of spontaneity the French think they can do anything. But what if I went to her house and spontaneously threw a banana peel on her living room floor? She would be furious. But for her that would be different, because her home is private and this street is public. Since she doesn't feel part of our community, for her there are no rules. What egoism! Hopefully, my rebuke will have taught her to mend her ways and, some day soon, she'll be able to join our community as one of us, as an equal. THEN I may begin to look at her. For now, I couldn't care less about someone as sloppy as that. The devil can have her! ” Thus each of the two young people considers the other a Martian, someone far from normal. Because for them “normality” is only what their communities have taught them, over the years.
More on the concept of “culture” and “cultural values”... “Culture” itself can be defined anthropologically as the network of meanings that the people of a community create in order to make sense of life. Some meanings influence behaviour and are called “principles”; others influence feelings and are called “attitudes”. Thus, when we say that we understand the culture of a group of people, we mean that we have learned to appreciate their feelings, however strange some may seem initially, and their reasons for behaving as they do, even if their behaviour may, at times, diverge radically from ours. In other words, we can say that we understand the cultural values of a people only when we have entered into the network of meanings that they have created, to make those values appear “right” and “normal”. (Every culture, including ours, pretends its values are “normal”.) Appreciating another culture does not mean abandoning ours: we can appreciate two kinds of music, while still preferring only one of them. What is important is to learn to feel both kinds as melodious, before passing judgement. If we continue to feel that the other kind of music is cacophonous, we have not really understood it. In conclusion, by learning to understand and appreciate the cultural values of a community different from ours, we will better understand the language of that community and will be able to use it more effectively. We will also understand and appreciate our own culture better, by contrast!

Who counts as “native speakers”?

Native speakers of a certain language are those who, from childhood, use one of the accepted varieties of that language. They must also satisfy another condition which, being complex, will be explained later. If you learn these two conditions, you will know who to interview and who not to interview, from among the various tourists you meet.

For a full explanation of the term “native speaker”, plus suggestions for finding some in your home town, skip to Section 4.-Interviewees – or just continue reading up to section 4.

What are “cultural values”?

Cultural values are the principles that guide the everyday life of people in a community, and the ensuing attitudes that colour their words and behaviour.

People acquire cultural values during their infancy. According to the society they grow up in – explains the sociologist G. Hofstede – they learn that it is “normal”:
● to address elders with respect or to address them as equals (or in some other way);
● to see outsiders as brothers or as partners or competitors (or in some other way);
● to consider emotions as worth showing or as something to be hidden (or otherwise);
● to plan for events in detail or to let events happen and then improvise (or a mixture);
and so on.

Each value is strikingly different from its alternative; but each is seen as “right” and “normal” by whoever has learned it from infancy. Learned it how? Through slaps and rebukes as a child and then -- as an adult – through social pressure of various kinds.

See the video Littering on your CD (or, if you are on the Internet, here: the file is 2 MB). It shows
a young French woman strolling through Amsterdam, a place where it is considered highly
offensive to “litter”, i.e. to throw refuse on the street, and where many people feel the duty
to teach others their community's principles and attitudes (here “Let order prevail!”).

After viewing the video, describe each person's principles and attitudes – the ones that explain why
they expressed themselves as they did (through their body language) and why they behaved as
they did. Then say what this incident might teach us about intercultural understanding.

Write on your comments down on a sheet of paper and then discuss them in class.

After you finish writing, read here below a few remarks on the video Littering.
(To read it, highlight the area INSIDE the purple rectangle. Do as you do when you
copy text: hold down the left mouse key and pass the cursor over the entire area.)

The young French woman shrugs off the young man's rebuke – and why not? “After all,” she thinks, “he's the odd one, not me! A hygiene fanatic!” In her culture, not to litter is a personal choice, not a community imposition. Personal choices are not based on mechanical rules, but rather on spontaneous feelings. In Paris, a young Frenchman might also have picked up her discarded cigarette pack, but only as a pretext for stopping her and chatting her up. But not in Amsterdam! “Here,” the young woman thinks, “men never look at you, only at the cigarette packs you leave one on the street. They seem to have concerns more than feelings. They feel concerned about their salvation if they are religious, about their good standing if they aren't, about their community's welfare in any case. But they don't live their whims! No, this city's out!”

The young Dutch man shrugs his shoulders, in an attempt to forget the unpleasant incident. “How could that young French-looking woman have been so offensive?” he muses. “In the name of spontaneity the French think they can do anything. But what if I went to her house and spontaneously threw a banana peel on her living room floor? She would be furious. But for her that would be different, because her home is private and this street is public. Since she doesn't feel part of our community, for her there are no rules. What egoism! Hopefully, my rebuke will have taught her to mend her ways and, some day soon, she'll be able to join our community as one of us, as an equal. THEN I may begin to look at her. For now, I couldn't care less about someone as sloppy as that. The devil can have her! ”

Thus each of the two young people considers the other a Martian, someone far from normal. Because for them “normality” is only what their communities have taught them, over the years.

More on the concept of “culture” and “cultural values”...

“Culture” itself can be defined anthropologically as the network of meanings that the people of a community create in order to make sense of life. Some meanings influence behaviour and are called “principles”; others influence feelings and are called “attitudes”.

Thus, when we say that we understand the culture of a group of people, we mean that we have learned to appreciate their feelings, however strange some may seem initially, and their reasons for behaving as they do, even if their behaviour may, at times, diverge radically from ours. In other words, we can say that we understand the cultural values of a people only when we have entered into the network of meanings that they have created, to make those values appear “right” and “normal”. (Every culture, including ours, pretends its values are “normal”.)

Appreciating another culture does not mean abandoning ours: we can appreciate two kinds of music, while still preferring only one of them. What is important is to learn to feel both kinds as melodious, before passing judgement. If we continue to feel that the other kind of music is cacophonous, we have not really understood it.

In conclusion, by learning to understand and appreciate the cultural values of a community different from ours, we will better understand the language of that community and will be able to use it more effectively. We will also understand and appreciate our own culture better, by contrast!

Now, what kind of questions reveal people's cultural values?

Questions about how they say things. For instance, you can ask what nicknames of affection (“sugar-pie”) or of irony (“sourpuss”) they use with neighbours and family members. This will teach you many new words and, more importantly, what those words reveal about interpersonal relationships in the other culture, with respect to your culture.
Questions about how they see things. For example, in the video “Model Interviews” appearing on the CD furnished with this course, four Dutch students try to discover how the British people that they interview (their “interviewees”) see queue jumping and showing emotions in public. Are real Brits like the national stereotype of the “perfect English gentleman” who famously disapproves of such things? To find out, the Dutch students created a questionnaire (also on your CD). Read it for inspiration. Then look at the video to see how this kind of questionnaire works in practice.

After choosing the kind of question to ask (linguistic or attitudinal), select a topic – for example:

“Ways of talking to (and about) figures of authority in the other culture”, or
“Attitudes towards physical contact in interpersonal relations in the other culture”, or
other ways of saying things and seeing things that may be different from your culture.

Then go to the collection of questions on the PICTURE CD and select the ones most useful for investigating that topic. You can also invent original questions if you wish. Or you can make a questionnaire with both standard and original questions.

NOTE: If you use standard questions, you can contribute to the PICTURE database on cultural differences by posting your results on the PICTURE website: www.worldenough.net/picture

Finally articulate your questions in questionnaire form. Make it easy to indicate your interviewees' answers, as well as their comments, rapidly – with a single pen stroke.

Write up your questionnaire using , for a model, the questionnaire in Appendix A.

OTHER OPTIONS: Think of sub-goals you may want to reach and how to reach them. ↑

Here are some examples.

SUB-GOAL A. “I want to see if I can get my interviewees to clarify what they mean, when I don't understand them. So I have prepared some requests for clarification and I have practised them with my partner before the interview.” ”

See Appendix B for examples of requests for clarification in English. These can be practised daily in your language lessons, if you are studying the language of the people whose culture you will be investigating.

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SUB-GOAL B . “I want to pay attention to the gestures and facial expressions of my interviewees, because body language often reveals what a person really thinks. So, with a partner, I will video record our interviews or, if that is not possible, I will take notes on the body language of our interviewees while my partner asks the questions.”

See the Body Language Checklist in Appendix C. You can use it while watching your video recording or while taking notes during an interview. Filling out the checklist is also good for your language skills. Research has shown, in fact, that when you observe body language better, you also pay better attention to the details of the accompanying verbal language.

SUB-GOAL C . “I want to use this occasion to discover things about my culture, through the eyes of my foreign interviewees. Even things I may find hard to accept.”

The two Dutch girls in Model Interview 1 on your CD wanted to see what impression Dutch people make when they stop being rational and “let themselves go.” After much reflection, they decided that the real moment of Dutch voluptuousness was in eating pickled herrings with one's fingers, head up like a seal. How would other Europeans see this habit?

They video-recorded a former teacher and a friend of his while indulging themselves at a herring bar. Then, taking their laptop to an Irish pub, they showed the video to an elderly British man after finishing the regular interview. The reaction of man was: “Listen, we Brits don't mind the sight of naked women in the windows of your red light district here in Amsterdam; we don't mind the sight of pot-smoking junkies in your 'free cafés'; but the sight of dignified, grown men eating herrings in public like animals, well, that is indeed a bit disgusting.” The man seemed to be speaking facetiously but the comment hit home nonetheless. The students had to admit that their culture, at least in this respect, had not evolved much from Neanderthal times. They had wanted an eye-opener and they got it.
Pickled Herrings video (CD or here -- the file is2 MB).

You, too, can take advantage of your conversation with foreign visitors to your country to learn not only about their culture but also about yours. .But warning: like the Dutch students, you have to be ready to accept the idea that your culture may be less “normal” than you think or wish. Cultures are, in fact, the product of contradictory historical accidents. None is entirely logical, as these scenes of life in France and the USA show.

It is not necessary to make a video of some problematic aspect of your culture to show to your interviewees. An easier way to call your own culture into question is to tell your interviewees one of the “critical incidents” ( = unpleasant clashes between people of different cultures) that you can find on the CD furnished with this course. You should choose a clash between someone from your culture and someone from your interviewees' culture. Then ask the interviewees for an opinion.

Here is an example of a critical incident that French students, studying American English, could tell at the end of their interviews with American tourists in France:

   CRITICAL INCIDENT BETWEEN AN AMERICAN MAN AND A FRENCH WOMAN
     Please give an opinion about the real-life story I am going to tell you...

The scene is at an International Congress in Paris. An American delegate – a
man – has just made acquaintance with a French delegate, a woman. He has
asked her to lunch. The French woman, speaking in English, responds with a
brief 'Why not?', combined with a rather sulky-looking shrug of the shoulders
and a pout.   The American, irritated, decides to call off the invitation: “Well,
if you can't show a little more pleasure and enthusiasm,” he says, “if you just
feel bored and resigned, let's forget it.” Now the French woman feels irritated:
“What d'you want, that Yankee false enthusiasm about everything?” she asks.
“Why can't I speak in English as I do in French?! It is perfectly normal to say
Pourquoi pas for Yes! Don't tell me how to speak, that's cultural imperialism!”

WHAT'S YOUR OPINION? WHICH SPEAKER MIGHT YOU AGREE WITH MORE?

If French students did read this critical incident to American tourist interviewees, the reaction of the Americans is easy to guess. They would most likely defend their compatriot and criticize the French woman. In fact, an attitude of studied indifference can indeed seem offensive to people taught to “think positively” from childhood. How should the French students react to this criticism? They should simply listen to whatever is said without arguing, without justifying, without even explaining – simply trying to appreciate it.

You should do the same with your interviewees if you include a critical incident at the end of your questionnaire. Try to see things the way they do. You can of course ask them to clarify what they have said, but do so without appearing to want to disprove them. In fact, the attitude of good ethnographers is precisely that of seeking to understand points of view that question their own. The PICTURE project wants to help you acquire an ethnographer's mind.

SUB-GOAL D. “I want to adapt my way of speaking to that of my interviewees, to put them more at their ease. From the standpoint of my studies, this will also enable me to learn about one of the varieties of the language and culture I am studying – the variety of my future interviewees.”

Intercultural Communication theory says, in fact, that by adapting or “accommodating” our language to that of our interlocutors, we establish a better relationship. How much do we have to “accommodate” our way of speaking?

If we are studying French, it is not necessary to speak Parisian French with Parisians, Canadian French with Quebeckers or Senegalese French with people from Senegal. It would be too difficult to learn all these varieties. (And if we are studying English or Spanish, the number of international varieties is even greater!) But it does mean that we can establish a better relationship with our interlocutors if we adopt some of their culture-specific ways of saying things and seeing things. A proverb... a way of asking for something... a way of commenting an event.. even the way we dress and present ourselves! And if we start to accommodate in these ways, it is probable that when we speak their language, our rhythm, our pronunciation and our choice of words will automatically come a little closer to theirs. We will seem to speak more like “one of them” or, at least, more like the kind of person that they readily understand.

This could be a possible research topic in class, if time permits. In an English class, for example, students could choose to interview Irish or Maltese people and, as a sub-goal, study the characteristics of Irish or Maltese English and the corresponding mentality.

A practical consideration, however: while there are many Irish tourists in most large European cities, there are few Maltese tourists. So if you choose this variety, you may have trouble finding people to interview although you can always try with the methods indicated in Appendix D.

The principle of accommodation does not apply everywhere. Some Japanese people, for example, do not want foreigners to imitate their way of speaking and acting – they prefer that foreigners stay in their place and speak Japanese as foreigners. Even in cultures where people appreciate our efforts to accommodate (the vast majority), it may not always be a good idea to be like the locals in moments in which our identity is challenged. In this kind of situation it may be better to accept to appear according to our national stereotype.

Here is a video about just such a circumstance: the passport control box at Tel Aviv
Airport in Israel. The video is in Hebrew but it is perfectly understandable to anyone

See Passport Control on your CD or, if you are on the Internet, by clicking here. (The file is 1 MB.)

This video shows an Arab who, in his way of speaking and dressing, had accommodated to Israeli
manners – and this made him look suspicious. The solution? The man accepted to act and speak
like the newspaper stereotype of Arabs – and this satisfied the Passport Control Officer.

So what does this show? Did the man demonstrate that accommodating can be negative? Not
really, if we think about it. For, by acting like the stereotype of Arabs, the man was, in reality,
accommodating perfectly to his interlocutor's view of the world (and, in particular, of Muslims).
In other words, by his conduct the man actually confirmed “accommodation theory”: he established
a better relationship with the Passport Officer by speaking and acting in the way most congenial to her.

In conclusion, accommodation can be a valid and very instructive sub-goal, one that will surely enable you to create a much more cooperative relationship with your interviewees. It will also improve your language proficiency and widen your cultural perspectives enormously.

How can you document yourself on the way of speaking and thinking that characterize your future interviewees, so that you can “accommodate” to it? Through the Internet! For a concrete example, see here how first year English students (level A1, “false beginners”) at the University of Rome III, Italy, researched various English-speaking cultures in view of their future interviews in the streets of Rome. (Each student studied a variety of English through some celebrity – for example, the singer Bono or the stateswoman Mary Robinson for Irish English – for which they then downloaded public speeches, videos, and biographical material.)

It must be remembered that “accommodating” your language to the language of your interviewees does not mean imitating them slavishly. It means being yourself – not yourself as you are normally at home, but rather the self you would be if you had lived for a while in your interviewees' culture.

Thus, if you want to use your German to interview Austrians from the Tirol region, because that area appeals to you and you want to learn more about Tyrolean cultural values, then “being yourself” means learning to act and to speak with your interviewees as you would if you had lived for a year or two in Innsbruck. (You would still be you, but you would have modified your German and foregrounded certain values to fit in better with Tirolean lifestyle.) In other words, while not a Tirolean, you would nonetheless be someone whom Tyroleans find particularly congenial. This feat is not as difficult as it may seem and, in fact, has been theorized and practiced for years.

SUB-GOAL E. “I want to enjoy this experience and have fun conducting the interviews. This is a unique occasion to learn the language I am studying through real-life experiences!

This is a a valid goal! Psychologists have shown in fact that to learn well, a student has to like learning and want to take charge of her/his learning. . So focus on being the active protagonist of this experience. Normally, at school, teachers are active and take the initiatives, while students “simply respond”. But during the interview, it is your interviewees who will “simply respond” while you will be actively taking the initiatives. It is you who will decide who speaks when, about what and for how long. So enjoy the opportunity.

PREDICTIONS: Before interviewing, write down hypotheses and predicted results. ↑

(A.) Say how you predict the majority of your interviewees will answer.

(B.) Say what you hypothesize their answers will tell you about their culture.

Write down your hypotheses and predictions and then discuss them in class.

In other words, make your suppositions explicit before you start interviewing. This is good, scientific research practice. You will also observe much better how your interviewees try to answer your questions, when you have clearly in mind what you are looking for.

Now a word of warning:

The research you conduct with your interviews aims at understanding how culture influences the way people see things and say things. This is an ambitious goal and a relatively new one in language programmes. But remember: however important this kind of research is and however hard you try to do it well, your results will inevitably be imperfect because, as in any social science, they will be based on multiple, mutually-dependent hypotheses that cannot all be tested in a single experiment.

An example will make this concept clearer. Let's imagine that you hypothesize that people in the culture you are investigating are “universalistic” -- for them “Rules must be respected always and everywhere, without exceptions”. You may try to test for this attitude by asking a question like “Do you disapprove of queue jumping, i.e. moving ahead of other people in a queue to be first?” You may also want to verify the consistency of your interviewees' responses by adding a second question that also tests for “universalism”: “Do you disapprove of littering, i.e. throwing refuse on the sidewalk?” If your interviewees say yes to both questions, you may think that you have discovered that they disapprove of rule-breaking -- consistently – and therefore that their culture is “universalistic”.

But does a “yes” answer to the two questions above really demonstrate unwavering attachment to rules? Even if you asked both questions – and dozens of similar ones – to the entire population of a community, would consistent “yes” answers demonstrate “universalism” in that culture?

Not necessarily. For one thing, behind your questions lies the unproven hypothesis that you can tell if interviewees “respect the rules” by how negatively they speak of people who don't. But this is not always the case. An interviewee may break rules all the time without remorse and yet condemn queue jumpers and litterers for purely egoistical reasons. Perhaps he simply hates to have to wait in a queue longer or perhaps he happens to work as a street cleaner!

In addition, by using a questionnaire you base yourself on the unproven hypothesis that you can discover people's real attitudes toward life, simply by asking them a list of predetermined questions. Detectives and psychotherapists would not necessarily agree with this claim!

Moreover, your two questions, which aim at defining people's culture by testing for their values (in this case, for the value of “universalism”), are based on the unproven hypothesis that the values of a community are the sum of the values of the individual members and, more fundamentally, that cultures are “systems of values”. This is indeed how we defined “culture” initially, but ours is just a “working hypothesis”. Other social scientists have other definitions.

In short , when studying languages and cultures – or any social science -- you will necessarily find yourself saddled with a large number of interrelated hypotheses the validity of which cannot possibly be demonstrated with a single experiment. So be aware of the inherent fragility of the conclusions that you (like all social scientists) will draw from your research

Having said that, by all means formulate your hypotheses, make your questionnaire and do your interviews as well as you can! For the value of this activity lies not in the results you obtain (which can never be conclusive) but rather in the doing.

Simply by changing the way you study languages, to include an investigation of
● cultural identities (if you decide to focus your interviews on attitudes)
● and cultural representations (if you focus your interviews on language habits),
you will develop an awareness that will make you a much better cross-cultural communicator in the future.

INTERVIEWEES (= the people you interview): Where to find native speakers in your town? ↑

First, a clarification. Who counts as “native speakers”?

Native speakers of a language are those who, from childhood, use one of the accepted varieties of that language in their key interpersonal relations, and who belong to a community in which that variety is habitually used. (“Key interpersonal relations” are those which shape a child's mentality while growing up. The concept of “belonging to a community” is discussed further on.)

For example, a “native speaker” of French is anyone who has grown up in Paris (France), Geneva (Switzerland), Quebec (Canada), Senegal (West Africa), etc., and who therefore speaks, from childhood, Parisian, Swiss, Canadian, or Senegalese French – or some other accepted variety. However, since these different linguistic-cultural communities have divergent value systems, for the purpose of your interview you should concentrate on just one of them, i.e. you should you interview only Parisians or Genevans or Quebeckers or Senegalese.

ALTERNATIVE PROJECT

As an alternative project, you could do just the opposite. If you study French, for example, you could decide to interview every French speaker you meet and make a comparative study of the various ways of saying things and seeing things in French. You should still classify your interviewees culturally, however, i.e. by the the community they identify with, since their cultural values will vary according to that community. Linguistically speaking, their variety of French will vary, too, according to their community – but you won't hear it since they will all try to speak the same official variety with you.

t should be noted that, in an increasingly multicultural and migratory world, many people have multiple cultural identities. If you meet such people, you may be unsure if they really belong to the community you are investigating and therefore if you should interview them.

Let us look at three such cases, this time imagining that you want to use English to investigate British culture, as the four Dutch students did in the videos on your CD. Who, then, counts as a valid native speaker of English belonging to the British cultural community?

A Brit who has been living outside of the U.K. for many years and who may have changed her/his way of thinking as a consequence?
Yes, this person is valid because – except in very unusual cases – s/he would still be considered a Brit by fellow Brits, however eccentric s/he may be after 10 years of life abroad. In anthropology, a person is said to be a member of a community if s/he feels s/he is and if that community recognizes him/her as such, no matter where s/he has lived or for how long.
A citizen of the U.K. who is living there now but who was born and raised in Jamaica?
Yes, this person is valid since s/he undoubtedly speaks English from childhood (English is the official language of Jamaica) and because most Brits accept the multi-cultural character of their society. In other words, they usually consider a person as British even if that person is British and something else, too. And, in virtue of the anthropological rule just explained, community membership is determined by (1.) claiming it and (2.) having that claim recognized by a majority of people in the community.
A Swede who speaks BBC English without flaw and who, when in Britain, accepts behaving like a “perfect English gentleman”, or an Irish poet (from the Republic of Ireland) who has won prizes for his verses in English and who is currently living in London?
No, these people would not be valid because they do not necessarily claim to identify (entirely or bi-culturally) with the British community. Nor are they necessarily accepted as fellow Brits by that community, whose members may feel perfectly at ease with them but still not consider them as “one of the (extended) family”. Both rules must apply. Since, in a street interview, it would be hard to determine if they do, you should avoid cases like these.

In conducting your interview, you will be investigating the specific linguistic and cultural community you have chosen to focus on. Each interviewee must therefore have internalized that community's language and value system (whether alone or together with other languages and value systems). This is the necessary and sufficient requirement. So just ask the people you meet: “Are you x?” And in case of doubt you can add: “Do most x people consider you x when speaking with you?“ (“x” = the linguistic and cultural community you are investigating.)

AN EVEN MORE ALTERNATIVE PROJECT

Alternatively, you can also decide to use your questionnaire to interview people who do not all belong to the same linguistic OR cultural community. Indeed, you can decide to interview – and compare – people who come from anywhere and who speak any language, as long as they understand your questionnaire.

For example, the four Dutch students could have used their questionnaire, written in English, to interview tourists from Nigeria or from Singapore (who, while not considering themselves British, surely know English, since it is an official language in their countries) as well as tourists from Argentina, Greece, Holland or Hungary (most of whom have learned enough English at school to respond to the questionnaire with ease).

This would have permitted the students to compare British ways of saying things and seeing things – determined by interviewing British citizens – with the contrasting expressive habits and cultural values of people from Africa, Asia, South America and various parts of Europe. In addition, linguistically speaking, the students would have had the chance to practice their British English with Brits and their International English with the speakers from the other countries – and both varieties are useful today.

The PICTURE database accepts the data produced by interviewees of any culture.

Now, where can you find “native speakers” of English French/German/Italian/Spanish in your home town? It will take a little effort and imagination but it is always possible to find someone.

To hear the Dutch students discuss possible places in Amsterdam to find British tourists, see the video on your CD or, if you are connected to the Internet, click here (the file is 6 MB)

Four students in the university of Amsterdam library discuss how to find British people to interview.ff
They plan to use the tiny digital recorder on the right (fairly inconspicuous if held as shown).

As you heard in the video, the students finally decided to look for British interviewees

in the queue of the Anne Frank Museum:
Unfortunately it was a cold, wet day, so there were few tourists and the students had to wait an entire afternoon before any possible interviewees showed up. Finally they found a very interested and responsive young British couple, so the wait was worthwhile.
and in an Irish pub in the city centre.
It was full of Dutch people but the barman told the students to return for the “happy hour” (5 pm) and sure enough, when they did, they found lots of British students, as well as Americans and Australians. So the students decided to do a comparative study of the different Anglo cultures and interviewed everyone.

Now, where can you find possible interviewees in your home town?
See Appendix D for guidelines.

[Return to section 1.-Goals]

FIRST OUTING: Interviewing your family and your neighbours. ↑

Before interviewing foreigners, translate your questionnaire into your native language and conduct a few preliminary interviews at home and in your neighbourhood. THIS IS THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT ACTIVITY OF THE COURSE, SO DO IT WELL!

It is the single most important important activity because:

it will give you confidence for when you interview foreigners later in their language;

it will give you the chance to test your audio or video recorder (you will discover that if you hold it too close, your interviewees will feel self-conscious and may be less sincere; if you hold it too far, they will pay less attention to it but your recording will not be clear);

it will enable you to make comparisons (and even statistics, if you use a quantitative questionnaire) between people in your culture and people in the other culture(s);

it will reveal to you how different the people in your own culture really are – probably no one will give you all the answers you predict! In fact, you and your classmates will get such diversified answers that you may begin to wonder if the people in your country really have a “common culture”! This will teach you that stereotypes about “national cultures” – including your own – are gross simplifications. In reality, all communities – including your own family and neighbourhood – are, in a sense, multicultural;

above all, by learning to consider your own culture as “problematic” (i.e., with uncertain characteristics requiring investigation), you will start to see it “from the outside”, like an anthropologist. This new perspective is precious! It will teach you:
► that any culture (even yours!!) can seem “bizarre” or “wrong” if observed from the outside;
► that no culture (not even yours) is entirely “logical”, although it will appear so to whomever accepts to enter into its logic;
►that truly understanding another culture means learning to feel and to want (not just to think) according to a new network of meanings expressed by a new will to be.

Now look at how the four Dutch students on your CD translated into Dutch their original Questionnaire – which they had written directly in English – for the initial phase of their research project, i.e. the interviews at home and in their neighbourhood.

You will see that, in translating, the students made three important cultural adaptations to render their questionnaire more effective in Dutch and, at the same time, more faithful to the original. (NOTE: Faithfulness does not require saying the same things; it requires creating the same effect). These changes are explained in red. Study them. Then do the same with your questionnaire.

Write down your translation of your questionnaire following the indications in Appendix E,

Then compare in class your translation with those of the other students and select one. Everyone in class should use the same questionnaire, both in your native language (for family and neighbours) and in your interviewees' language (for the street interviews).

You are not ready to conduct your initial interviews at home and among your neighbours.

Good luck!

When you finish,

write a REPORT of your interviews following the indications in Appendix F,

SECOND OUTING; Interviewing native speakers ↑

Now you are ready to go out and conduct interviews of native speakers of the language you are studying, to see if your predictions about their cultural mentality hold up.

But before going out to interview:

(a.) practice saying the questionnaire,
(b.) practice asking for clarification,
(c.) practice noting down body language, and
(d.) prepare yourself psychologically!

a. Practice saying the questionnaire. Try recording yourself saying the questions from your questionnaire; then listen to see if you said SLOWLY and with EMPHASIS the key words (which should be underlined or coloured): Then read the questionnaire to a partner, who pretends to be an interviewee, to get her/his impressions.

Example: Practice reading out loud Question 1 from the model questionnaire:

“1. How proud... are you to be a... British... citizen?”

If you hear yourself saying: “How proud are you... to be a British citizen?”
record the question again (1.) saying How with emphasis, (2.) reducing “are” to 're and (3.) putting the pauses in the right places. Exaggerate your delivery, since in real life you will tend to speak monotonously – unless you pay close attention.

b. Practice asking for clarification. While doing the second part of exercise (a.), your partner – who is pretending to be an interviewee – must interrupt you to ask for clarification whenever you fail to accentuate the right words. Your partner should use all 4 steps indicated in Appendix B.. The request for clarification will let you know that you didn't say a certain word clearly.

Then exchange roles. While your partner reads the questionnaire, you do the interrupting to ask for clarification. If you want, you can interrupt your partner even if s/he says every word clearly, simply as a way to practice the clarification phraseology. To have an excuse to interrupt, make the sound of a passing car or bus that covers what your partner is saying: then ask for the clarification.

Example – Student A (Interviewer): How proud... are you to be a...
Student B (interviewee): Mmmmm, beep, beep!! Sorry, how...what?“
(“Mmmmm, beep, beep” is the sound of a passing car that honks twice.)

c. Practice noting down body language, using the Checklist in Appendix C. Ask your partner to indicate some meaning (disapproval, embarrassment, dissimulated mirth....) through non-verbal sounds, facial expressions, gestures and posture. Then try to represent in words what you see. Give your description to a third student and ask her/him to do the behaviour described. If s/he manages to communicate the original intent, your description is accurate. During your street interview, while your partner asks the questions you can take notes of significant body language messages. Even if you video-record the interviews you will conduct outside the classroom, a third student should come along to note down the body language messages. This is because the video camera may not be focused on the body language feature that you (or the third student) consider important.

d. Prepare yourself psychologically, both + positively and – negatively) before going out.

+ ON THE POSITIVE SIDE, relax. The interview will be easier than you think.

See the video (CD or here) of tourists happy to be interviewed.
Most foreigners will be happy to speak with you because they are alone in your country and have few contacts with the people there. Answering your questions is one way of “making contact with the locals”.
In addition, most people are curious about cultural differences (this is probably why your interviewees have travelled to your country!), so they will find your questions stimulating.
Moreover most people like to help young people who are trying to learn; so if you say you are doing a task for school or university, you will almost automatically win their support.
Finally, do not worry about “making mistakes”. Most of your interviewees don't know your language so anything you say to them will be more than what they could say to you! Besides, they are interested in your questions, not your grammar. So if you say “he don't” instead of “he doesn't”, they may not even notice the difference (many native speakers make that “mistake”, too) since they will be focusing on what you have to say.

– ON THE NEGATIVE SIDE, learn to be patient. It will take longer than you expect.

See the video (CD or here) of a typical refusal: the man isn't British.
Ethnographers spend weeks (even months!) in the jungle trying to find a native who can explain some tribal custom. So do not feel overly frustrated if you spend afternoons looking for foreign tourists to interview without finding the ones you want.

Remember that you are conducting FIRST HAND RESEARCH, not just reading about other people's research, and this takes patience. Two of the Dutch students on your CD waited outside the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam an entire, freezing afternoon and found only one couple to interview. So when you get frustrated, just remember this: creating knowledge requires much more effort than simply consuming knowledge – but it develops your mind much more, too!
Don't feel offended if a foreign visitor refuses to be interviewed. Some really have no time. Others may fear that you represent some commercial activity – they may suspect that, during your interview, you will try to get them to buy something, take a tour, etc.
For the same reason, don't feel offended if your interviewees stop the interview halfway – as much as they may like talking with you, they may have tight schedules to respect.
For obvious reasons do not accept to go with them to another place for the interview.
Many interviewees will be so happy to speak with you that, upon seeing that you understand their first words, they will start talking as quickly as they do with friends at home. And so you will not understand anything. If you ask them to speak slowly, they will – for a minute. Then they will forget and speed up again. What can you do?

Instead of saying “please speak more slowly”, use continual requests for clarification (Appendix B) – even when you understand most words, pretend that you don't and ask for a clarification to check your understanding. This stops your interviewees and forces them to follow your rhythm. Remember: YOU are the interviewer and so it is YOUR right to KEEP CONTROL of the situation.

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