The structured narrative interview

Abstract

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.