Readings for Lecture 5

Question 1

What is ethnographic interviewing?

Answer 1

-> 2 complementary processes:
1. developing rapport
2. eliciting information

= series of friendly converstations into which the ethnographer slowly introduces new elements to assist informants (= ethnographic elements)

-> kind of speech event (= social occasions identified by the kind of talking that takes place)
-> shares many features with friendly conversations - skilled ethnographers: often gather data through participant observation

Question 2

What is rapport?

Answer 2

= harmonious relationship between ethnographer and informant -> basic sense of trust which allows free flow of information
* NOT deep friendship or profound intimacy
* impossible to identify universal qualities -> culturally defined
* rapport : changes and fluctuates
* model of rapport process:
- apprehension -> exploration -> cooperation -> participation

Question 3

What is apprehension?

Answer 3

= sense of uncertainty
-> eg. participant answers briefly, discomfort, asks “Are you with the FBI?”, …

-> why the uncertainty?
* participant = doesn’t know what to expect
* participant doesn’t really understand the purposes and motives of the ethnographer
* both participant and interviewer = unsure how another person will response
* Participants = may fear that they will not meet the expectations

-> how solve?
* to get informants talking => opportunity for the ethnographer to listen, to show interest, and to respond in non-judgmental fashion => acceptance + trust

Question 4

What is exploration?

Answer 4

= when both ethnographer and informant begin trying out the new relationship -> seek to discover what the other person is like, what the other wants from the relationship, …
-> time of listening, observing, and testing Eg; What does he want me to say? Am I answering questions as I should?

! informants = need to move through this stage without pressure to fully cooperate => exhausting for both parties

-> 3 principles which facilitate rapport building
1. make repeated explantions
2. restate what informants say
=> restating demonstrates interest in learning
3. don’t aks for meaning, ask for use
-> ask for meaning => judgmental
-> use eg. what are some other ways you could talk about days hanging?

Question 5

What is cooperation?

Answer 5

= complete cooperation based on mutual trust -> ethnographer and informant = know what to expect of one another + no worry about offending each other or making mistakes

Question 6

What is participation?

Answer 6

= informant recognises + accepts role of teaching ethnographer + assertive role by informant + bring new info to attention of ethnographer + help in discovering patterns in their culture

-> informant = participant observer in own cultural scene

Question 7

What is photo elicitation?

Answer 7

= a method of interview in visual sociology and marketing research that uses visual images to elicit comments

-> type of ethnographic questions

Question 8

What is the difference between ethnographic questions and other questions?

Answer 8

Other questions
- interviewer aks Q + informant responds => 2 cultural meaning systems

Ethnographic
- both questions and answers = discovered from informants
-> 1 human thinking

Question 9

What are three ways to discover questions when studying another culture? (ethnographic interviewing)

Answer 9

1. ethnographer can record questions people ask in the course of everyday life
   -> ‘who stars in that one?’
   -> go to query-rich settings eg. children querying parents
2. ethnographer indirectly inquires about questions used by participants in cultural scene
   eg. “What is an interesting question about …”
3. simply asking informants to talk about a particular cultural scene (descriptive questions)
   eg. “Could you tell me what the jail is like?”

Question 10

What are descriptive questions?

Answer 10

-> aim?
- to provide a desciption of the variable under consideration
- to encourage participant to talk about particular cultural scene

-> uses power of language to construe settings
-> key principle: expanding the length of the question tends to expand the length of the response

Question 11

What are the 5 descriptive questions?

Answer 11

1. grand tour questions
2. mini-tour questions
3. example questions
4. experience questions
5. native-language questions

Question 12

What are grand tour questions?

Answer 12

= large, general questions asking the interviewee to describe the ‘terrain’ of their experience, where we learn ‘native’ terms about the cultural scene
-> many aspects of experience
* Space: eg. Could you describe the inside of the jail?
* time: Could you describe the main things that happenened during May?
* Events: eg. Can you tell me all the things that happened when you got arrested for being drunk?
* people: eg. Can you tell me the names of all relatives?
* activities: eg. What are the things you do during initatiation ceremony
* objects: eg. Could you describe all the different tools and other equipment you use in farming

-> 4 subquestions

Question 13

What are the 4 subquestions of grand tour questions/mini tour questions?

Answer 13

1. typical grand tour questions
   -> asking about description of how things usually are
   eg. Could you describe a typical nigth at Bradys bar?
2. specific grand tour questions
   -> question about most recent day, recent event, locale best known
   eg. Could you describe what happened at Bradys bar last night?
3. guided grand tour questions
   -> informant gives an actual grand tour
   eg. Could you show me around the office?
4. task related grand tour questions
   -> ask informant to perform some simple taks that aids in the description
   eg. Could you draw me a map of the inside of the Jail and explain what it is like?

Question 14

What are mini-tour questions?

Answer 14

= identical to grand tour questions except deal with a much smaller unit of experience
eg. Could you describe what you do when you take a break at Brady’s bar?

Question 15

What are example questions?

Answer 15

= questions that take some single act/event identified by the informant and ask for an example
eg. Can you give me an example of pooling?

Question 16

What are experience questions?

Answer 16

= questions asking about any experiences an informant has had in some particular setting
eg. Could you tell me about some experiences that you have had working as a directory assistance operator?

-> very open-ended => difficult to answer + elicit atypical events > routine ones

Question 17

What are native language questions?

Answer 17

= question designed to minimze the influence of informants translation competence by asking them to use the terms and phrases most commonly used in the cultural scene
eg. the jail -> the bucket

-> ! serve to remind informants that the ethnographer wants to learn their language

-> 3 types:
1; direct language questions
2. hypothetical interaction questions
3. typical sentence question

Question 18

What are direct-language questions?

Answer 18

= directly asking informant how they would refer to a certain word/sentence
eg. How would you refer to it?

> the more familiar the ethnographer and informant = the most important

Question 19

What are hypothetical interaction questions?

Answer 19

= questions which create a hypothetical interaction
eg. If you were talking to another operator, would you say it that way?

Question 20

What are typical sentence questions?

Answer 20

= question which asks the informant for typical sentences that contain a word or phrase
eg. What are some sentences I would hear that include the phrase “making the bucket”

Question 21

What are the elements of a friendly conversation?

Answer 21

1. greetings -> “Hi”
2. Lack of explicit purpose -> no agenda to cover
3. avoiding repetition
4. asking questions -> balanced inquiries
5. expressing interest
6. expressing ignorance -> “Go on, I’m not bored, you’re not telling me something I already know.”
7. taking turns
8. abbreviating -> filled with references that hint at things or only partial information
9. pausing
10. leave-taking -> conversation never stops without some verbal ritual that says ‘the end

Question 22

What are the 3 most important ethnographic elements?

Answer 22

1. explicit purpose
   -> both realize that talking = purpose -> informant = hazy idea of purpose + ethnographer = must make it clear
2. ethnographic explanations
   -> ethnographer = repeatedly offer explanations to the informant
   -> 5 types:
   1) project explanations
   2) recording explanations eg. “I’d like to write some of this down”
   3) native language explanations
   4) interview explanations
   5) question explanations
3. ethnographic questions
   -> 3 types:
   1) descriptive questions
   2) structural questions
   3) contrast questions

Question 23

What are project explanations?

Answer 23

= translating the goal of doing ethnography + eliciting an informants cultural knowledge into terms the informant will understand
eg. I am interested in your occupation, I’d like to talk to you about what beauticians do?

Question 24

What are interview explations?

Answer 24

= offer an explanation for the type of interview that will take place
eg. “Today I’d like to ask you some different questions. I’ve written some terms on cards and I’d like to have you tell me which ones are alike or different”

Question 25

What are question explanations?

Answer 25

= asking you to show cause and effect as you try to justify whatever the question is asking of you

eg. I want to ask you a different type of question”

Question 26

What are structural questions?

Answer 26

= questions that provide a predetermined set of responses
-> aim? to discover info about domains, basic units in informants’ cultural knowledge
eg. “What are all the fish that you caught on vacation”?

Question 27

What are contrast questions?

Answer 27

eg. “What is the difference betweeen a bass and a northern pike?”
-> aim? ethnographer finds out what an informant means by the various terms used in his native language

Question 28

What differences exist between an ethnographic interview and a friendly conversation?

Answer 28

1. turn taking is less balanced -> ethnographer = asks questions + informant = talks
2. repeating replaces the normal rule of avoiding repetition
3. expressing interest and ignorance occur more often but only on the part of the ethnographer
4. in place of the normal practice of abbreviating, the ethnographer encourages expanding on what each person says

Question 29

What are the elements in the ethnographic interview

Answer 29

1. greetings
2. giving ethnographic explanations (5types)
3. asking ethnographic questions (3 types)
4. assymetrical turn taking
5. expressing interest
6. expressing cultural ignorance
7. repeating
8. restating informants terms
9. incorporating informant’s terms
10. creating hypothetical situations
11. asking friendly questions
12. taking leave

Question 30

What are some principles for asking structural questions?

Answer 30

1. concurrent principle
   -> ask structural questions concurrently with descriptive questions -> structural complements descriptive ipv replace (alternation)
   => guide to making interviews friendly conversations
2. Explanation principle
   -> structural q = often demand an explanation -> otherwise: structural q = may take off guard or limit response
   + demand in native language
   -> use of familiar domain as example to make clear the nature of the qs eg. Either of us could list a lot of trees, but you have learned to recognize many different kinds of masquerade zear, can you list different kinds? OR repeat already mentioned types eg. You mentioned ASL, speaking, … Can you think of any other …
3. repetition principle
   -> structural qs = must be repeated many times
   -> to reduce boredom => alternate w descriptive qs
4. context principle
   -> provide info on contextual information
5. cultural framework principle
   -> must phrase q in cutural + personal terms
   eg. personal: what are the different flops you know about?
   eg. cultural: I’m interested in finding out about the different kinds of flops that tramps make use of.

Question 31

What are the kind of structural questions?

Answer 31

1. verification questions
2. cover term questions
3. included term questions

Question 32

What are verification questions?

Answer 32

= ask the informant to confirm or disconfirm hypotheses about the folk domain

Types
1. domain verification questions
-> seek to verify the existence of a domain for which the ethnographer has hypothesized a cover term
eg. Are there different kinds of Y’s? Are there different kinds of groups here at Midwest Junior High?

2. Included term verification questions
   -> seeks to verify wether one or more terms are included in a domain
   -> eg. Is X a kind of flop? Is X a way to hassle waitresses?
3. semantic relationship verification questions
   -> to test the appropriateness of the way a semantic relation is expressed
   eg. How would most teachers say it, that administrators are a kind of group?
4. native-language verification questions
   -> verify whether something is a folk term rather than a translation created for the benefit of the ethnographer
   eg. Is this the term you would use?

Question 33

What are cover term questions?

Answer 33

eg. Are there different kind of bulls?
eg. What are all the different steps in making a sale of encyclopedia?

Question 34

What are included term questions?

Answer 34

= to ask about the included terms of a folk domain -> often befor cover term
eg. Are Peter pan, robin hood, … all the same king of thing? Yes they are all kinds of miscellaneous character costumes. Are there any other kind of miscellaneous character costumes

Question 35

What are substitution frame questions?

Answer 35

= questions in which one term is removed from the sentence and informant must substitute with other meaningful term
eg. You find … in the bucket.

-> tip! make the sentences short and simple

Question 36

What are card sorting structural questions?

Answer 36

= writing terms on cards to elicit, verify and discuss a domain
eg. writing all kinds of tramps on cards + placing cards before informant + asking: Are these all kinds of tramps?