The Interviews

the process of idea and word generation required by the building up of the L3 text available to observation. Second, it decreased the cognitive load on working memory during idea generation in the completion of a non-native linguistic task. At this point, it has to be highlighted that writing was only a research strategy, as described before, and not a target by itself. As a consequence, the written products of the think-loud task were not taken into consideration in data analysis. Data analysis of the think-aloud task focused on the verbal protocols collected during the processes of generating ideas, setting goals, and turning ideas into a cursive, logically coherent text, and it looked at how lexical units were accessed and chosen to build up the L3 narrative.

The think-aloud task sheet used in the study is reproduced in Appendix B. The instructions were given in English so as to set the language of the task and keep the activation of any other languages of the participants’ MML to a minimum (Bialystok, 2011;

Green, 1998; Poarch & Van Hell, 2012). The think-aloud task was not time-bound so as to alleviate the tension created by having to verbalize thoughts and to reduce the possibility of obstructive states such as tip-of-the-tongue, defined as “the feeling that a known word will be recalled even though it is not accessible immediately” (Schwartz, 2006, p. 149), and choking under time-pressure, defined as “performing more poorly than expected given one’s level of skill (…) in situations fraught with performance pressure” (Beilock & Carr, 2001, p. 701).

The design process of the task to use with the think-aloud data collection approach included a pilot-phase in which three L1 Polish-L2 Hungarian-L3 English multilingual secondary school students aged 16 built up an L3 narrative based on the picture series. After task completion, they were asked to talk about issues of building the text, word-search, and the extra task of saying aloud what went through their minds. The information resulting from the pilot-phase was used to refine the phrasing of the task instruction and to reduce its length.

The analysis of the verbal protocols resulting from the meaning-making process was performed based on the GTM paradigm, and it is discussed below in the section dedicated to data analysis.

interviews act very often as framework or background for other data in the study (Heller, 2006).

This section details the use of the interview in the study as an instrument of data collection. In the first part of the section, I outline the place of the interview in the broader framework of the study, then I explain the purpose of the interviews. Finally, I outline the steps taken to devise the questions and to build up the interview protocol.

I carried out interviews at two points in the course of the research project (Figure 12).

One set of interviews preceded and a second set of interviews followed the think-aloud process. Both sets of interviews were semi-directed (Gillham, 2000), but they differed in their degree of directedness. The first set of interviews, the one carried out before the think-aloud procedure, aimed to collect more general data about the multiple conditions that shaped the participants’ language use and preferences. One of the important goals of this preliminary or pre-task interview was also to develop a closer rapport with the participants and to increase their sense of comfort so as to create a “fruitful interactional space” (Codó, 2008, p. 160) in which they would feel at ease in talking about the topics in question and comleting the upcoming task with less anxiety. As a consequence, while this set of interviews attempted to elicit discrete pieces of information about the participants’ linguistic biographies, language learning histories and language-use preferences, they also allowed the participants to “lead the content of the interview” (Gillham, 2000, p. 2) diminishing this way the directedness of the interview schedule.

The set of interviews conducted after the think-aloud procedure was more directed as it was circumscribed by the aims to contextualize the data gained from the think-aloud protocols and to add more content to the sensitizing concepts that emerged from both the analysis of the first set of interviews and the think-aloud verbal data (Bowen, 2006; Glaser, 1978; Kearney, 2007). Sensitizing concepts within the GT framework are constructs including some general elements that may emerge as guiding ideas during the early analysis steps of the research (Van den Hoonaard, 2008). They may also be derived from specialist literature (Bowen, 2006). They often act as “starting points for building analysis” (Charmaz, 2003, p.

259) and can point to tentative courses for further research.

Figure 12. Research Tools and Their Chronological Order of Employment in the Study.

The arrow represents the sequence in which the research tools were used.

The interview data supported a more sophisticated understanding of the participants’

linguistic practices and reliance on their lexical systems, and it also contributed to data triangulation. While the think-aloud procedure focused on collecting samples of linguistic data which could give insight into how the multilingual participants selected and used words to create an L3 narrative, the interviews aimed to collect various content data, including data about how they carried out text-building in a non-native language.

Hammersley and Atkinson (1983) and Codó (2008) highlighted the role of interviews in accessing information that cannot be uncovered by other means or that can only be indirectly explored. Mental processes in general, and the search for lexical units in multiple lexicons in particular, can stand as good examples for phenomena that is explored indirectly.

Different experimental and quasi-experimental arrangements, and indeed the think-aloud procedure itself, can yield information about whether or not participants can come up with a certain word, can translate a word from one language into another, or name an object shown in a picture. It is the participants’ reactions to which the researchers ascribe values as being indications of relationships between what takes place as covert mental processes and what can be overtly observed. Researchers within the positivist research paradigm are concerned only with this side of scientific truth. I argue that, in these research contexts, employing the interview as a complementary research tool would help the researchers in stepping beyond reductionist yes/no answers to questions about processes connected to the mental lexicon and would assist them in examining issues of how and why, which would result in a more expansive view.

3.3.2.1 The Pre-Task Interview

Chronologically, the interview questions of the pre-task interview were developed after the process of think-aloud had been planned (see Figure 9). While I planned and devised the think-aloud activity with a certain multilingual population in mind—young multilinguals, preferably using English as one of their non-native languages at an intermediate level—I developed the interview questions after I had already performed sampling and had met the research participants: 12 Hungarian L1 secondary-school students, users of the following additional languages: Romanian L2-English L3-French/German L4 and Latin L5.

The development of the questions for the pre-task or preliminary interview took place in five steps in a cyclical process. This cycle is shown in Figure 13. In preparing the interview questions, I found Bill Gillham’s (2000) work valuable help. It has to be mentioned at this point that the pre-task interview development steps became palpable only halfway in the process of question-development, when I was already deeply immersed in the trialling phase

Figure 13. The Circle Represents the Frame of the Pre-Task Interview Development Procedure.

The quintants of the circle represent the steps taken in the process of developing the questions for the pre-task interview. The arrows represent the directionality of the question-development process. The first stage of the process was the intensive review of literature and an iterative turn to the research questions. The last stage was the drawing up the final list of questions.

of the interview questions. The five stages of the pre-task question-development process are 1) the revisiting of the research questions and the review of relevant literature; 2) generating interview questions; 3) trialling the questions; 4) piloting the questions; and 5) creating the final interview schedule. For the sake of simplicity, Figure 13 shows these five sub-processes as separate actions, following a chronological thread, feeding one into the other. However, in reality, there were multiple overlaps between the steps, in the sense that they took place simultaneously. For instance, reading literature, with different intensity, underpinned the whole process of interview-question development. In addition, at certain points in the process, the steps also occurred in a reversed direction. While I was trialling the questions, I repeatedly turned back to the question-generating phase to replace questions which proved unproductive or to reword questions based on observations collected from three secondary-school multilinguals who helped in the trial process.

In the following, the steps of the pre-task interview development are described.

3.3.2.1.1 Revisiting the Research Questions and the Review of Literature One of the most important characteristics of the GTM method is the researcher’s iterative interaction with both the collected data and the literature that informs the different segments of the research (Bryant & Charmaz, 2007; Goldkuhl & Cronholm, 2010; Charmaz, 2003, 2006). In the process of developing the pre-task interview questions, this iterative interaction materialized first in turning to the research question to identify the main guiding lines along which the interview questions had to be grouped. As a reminder to the reader, the research questions are reproduced below.

1. Which of their languages do multilinguals rely on when they compose a non-native-language narrative based on wordless pictures?

2. Which are the strategies used by multilinguals in the process of searching for non-native words while composing?

As the focus of the study was on how multilinguals build a non-native narrative text, how they make meaning of pictorial representations, whether and how they rely on their multiple languages, and how they look for the target words during composition, the main themes that acted as starting points for the pre-task questions development were languages known and used, reading, writing, text-composition, and meaning making of pictorial representations, and meaning-making in a non-native language. In accordance with these broad themes and with the main purposes of the pre-task interview, to collect autobiographical data from the participants and to initiate them in the process of research, I reasoned that the interview format which would best serve these purposes was the semi-directed interview with open-ended questions. This format usually fosters a comfortable conversational atmosphere and makes possible for the researcher to collect rich data (Gillham, 2000; McCracken, 1988; Roulston, 2008).

Engagement with a wide range of specialist literature, especially with that concerned with the practicalities of the interview, assisted me in becoming more focused in the processes of wording the questions, in planning the interview schedule, and last but not least, in establishing rapport with the participants.

3.3.2.1.2 Generating Interview Questions

The process of generating interview questions started with the examination of the larger issues which acted as the broad themes around which the questions had to be centred and which guided the inquiry. The six themes which then became question-group names were as follows:

- language knowledge and use,

- reading (in the languages known and used),

- writing (in the languages known and used),

- composition of narrative texts (in the languages known and used), - meaning making of pictorial representations, and

- constructing meaning in a non-native language.

In the process of generating questions for the pre-task interview, I received a lot of feedback and gained a lot from the exchange of ideas. The feedback I received from one of the professors at the doctoral school who was teaching qualitative research and the colleagues in my research group was especially useful in shaping and reshaping the questions, and focusing on the arrangement of questions from more general to more specific within the frames of the question-groups. The whole process of generating questions for the pre-task interview took place in “hybrid brainstorming” (Korde & Paulus, 2017, p. 177) sessions. Hybrid brainstorming is a type of idea generation where the individual ideation process is systematically alternated with the group ideation process with the aim of exchanging ideas and getting evaluative answers from experts/people involved in similar research areas (Girotra et al., 2010). In the case of the generating-questions stage, these brainstorming sessions also acted as a preliminary trialling of questions before the actual trialling, the third stage of question development took place. An example of an early manuscript written during one of the question-brainstorming sessions is found in Appendix C.

Because the participants’ native language was Hungarian, the interview questions were formulated in Hungarian. The result of the question-generation stage was a provisional interview schedule, with questions grouped based on the six main themes, ready to be tried out in the next stage of the pre-task interview development.

3.3.2.1.3 Trialling the Questions

The third stage in the pre-task interview development was that of trying out the series of questions with individuals who were not going to take part in the main study, but who possessed similar characteristics to the individuals engaged in the study. Based on Gillham (2000), for trying out the provisional interview schedule, researchers have to recruit individuals “from the same kind of occupational or age group” (p. 22) as the actual research participants. As to the ideal number of trialling participants, the literature does not mention an optimal number of participants in the trialling process (Gillham, 2000). The essence of the trialling process of the interview schedule is not to focus on generalizing data across populations but to examine how the research tool works in the field and to receive rich feedback related to mainly methodological issues such as wording, sequence of questions, and timing. As such, the trialling process focuses on idiosyncrasies, defined as individual reactions connected to the research tool. This is why I decided to adopt the principle of

theoretical saturation (Beitin, 2012) as a guideline in the recruitment of trialling participants.

Theoretical saturation concerns the amount of information which allows the researcher to arrive at informed judgments and decisions (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Therefore, I decided to involve participants—and collect their feedback—until the amount of information regarding the preliminary interview schedule would permit the refinement of the research tool so as to make it ready for the pilot phase.

The stage of trialling the pre-task interview questions can be considered a second phase in the refinement of the interview questions and had the following characteristics:

1. As a first step, three 16-year old multilingual secondary-school students were asked to participate in the process. Since the participants were minors, parental consent was obtained (see Appendix D for the letter of consent). Two of the participants were Polish L1 users. They used Hungarian as an L2, English as an L3, Latin as an L4, and German as an L5. The third trialling-participant spoke Hungarian as an L1, Norwegian as an L2, English as an L3, Latin as an L4, and German as an L5. All three individuals were attending secondary education in Hungary at the time of the question-trialling process.

2. The sampling of the three trialling-participants was guided by the principle of theoretical saturation, and it was both a purposive sampling and a convenience sampling (Saumure & Given, 2008). Sampling was purposive in the sense that the participant had to meet the requirements of multilinguality, age; they had to have linguistic repertoires and language acquisition orders similar to those of the research participants in the actual research. The recruitment of the three participants was based on convenience, “on their ease of availability” (Saumure &

Given, 2008, p. 124) as they were studying at the secondary school where I was teaching at the time of the study. The process of sampling would have been protracted if the three participants had not produced the necessary amount of feedback information which allowed the refinement of the pre-task interview schedule.

3. Trialling of the questions took place incrementally, that is, only segments of the interview schedule were tried out with one of the three participants at one time.

Gillham (2000) recommends this strategy to researchers so as to make possible the collection of rich feedback on the part of the participants in this process.

The trialling process had several useful outcomes for the further steps of the interview development. First, I was able to get an idea about approximately how much time an interview session would take up. This information played role in the later phase of organizing the interview settings and schedule. Then, I also became aware that the wording of some

questions still needed refinement. This was for instance the case of the Hungarian phrase

“hallás utáni szövegértés”, whose translation is “listening comprehension”. One of the trialling-participants mentioned that while in Hungary all secondary-school students probably know the meaning of the Hungarian phrase, it is more customary among the secondary-school student population to use the English word “listening” to refer to the comprehension of spoken texts. He also added, that the Hungarian phrase sounded “quite pedantic and official”. This remark is in line with qualitative interview literature which reminds interviewers of the importance of becoming familiar with the specialized language used by a particular group (Roulston, 2008; Rubin & Rubin, 2012).

The trialling process also revealed the usefulness of follow-up questions and prompts.

Additionally, the trialling interviews brought to light the usefulness of sharing personal biographical data about my own language learning trajectory and language use with the trialling-participants, as this contributed to a better rapport with the them—they became more open about the topics under discussion (Talmage, 2012). The trialling stage, as a whole, resulted in an improved interview schedule.

3.3.2.1.4 Piloting the Interview Schedule

The fourth step in developing the pre-task interview schedule was a pilot stage. The focus of the trialling stage was methodological, that is, the trialling participants were asked to both answer the questions, and they were also invited to add the remarks they had connected to the choice of words, order of questions, and the meaning they worked out of the questions. In addition, in the trialling stage only sections of the interview schedule were tried out at one time with one trialling participant.

Piloting was a more advanced stage in the development of the interview questions as it started with an already improved version of the interview schedule, and the whole series of questions was used with each of the participants in the pilot study. In the development of the pre-task interview schedule, the pilot stage played a role in further improving the research instrument and in enhancing the way the interviews were conducted.

In piloting the interview schedule, I found extremely useful Peat, Mellis, Williams, and Xuan’s (2001, p. 123) suggestions, which albeit were formulated in connection to questionnaire questions, can be also be extended to interview questions. The characteristics of the pilot stage were the following:

1. Two multilingual secondary-school students were recruited following the sampling method employed in the trialling process. One of the pilot participants was 15 years old and used Hungarian as an L1, French as L2, English as L3, and Latin L4. The second pilot participant was 17 years old and used Hungarian as an L1, German as an L2, English as an L3, and Latin as an L4.

2. The interview questions were asked from the pilot participants in the same way as they later were asked from the participants in the actual study. However, the order in which the questions were asked was not the same because semi-structured interviews allow for a move of focus led by the participant’s answers (Gubrium & Holstein, 2012).

3. The participants were invited to answer the questions with as many details as they could. They were also asked to share any observations and comments regarding the questions.

4. The interview sessions were timed.

5. Questions that proved less conducive to rich narrative on the part of the two pilot participants were supplemented with probes and prompts.

The interviews of the pilot stage were recorded and listened to several times. The analysis of the interviews led to some modifications in the interview schedule into its final form (Appendix E). The product of the pilot stage was an improved interview schedule with questions grouped around the following themes:

- knowing and using a language,

- reading (different languages)—reading comics, - writing (different languages)—composition, and

- meaning making and problem-solving in a non-native language.

It is to be noted that at the end of the process of developing the pre-task questions the initial themes became altered. To the theme of reading in the languages known and used was added the theme reading comics, which in the initial phase of the interview development existed as the separate theme of meaning making of pictorial representations. This alteration took place because during the trialling and the pilot stages it became apparent that narrowing down the broad topic of pictorial representations or pictures to comics produced richer answers. In addition, I also discovered that comics were rarely present in the literary diet of the participants who helped in improving the pre-task interview schedule. In possession of these two pieces of information, I decided to narrow the theme of meaning making of pictorial representations to a secondary theme and to ask questions connected to comics when the main theme of reading was explored. Furthermore, a change, compared to the initial list, was introducing the theme of problem-solving in a non-native language. This theme emerged during the trial and the pilot interviews and proved quite closely linked to the theme of meaning making in a non-native language.

The questions contained by the interview schedule are, as Gillham (2000) stated, only guiding, or prompting resources, whose role is to assist the researcher in the process of conducting the interview. This is reflected in the wording of those questions, which have alternative phrasings. For example, Question 4 within the knowing and using languages