Analysing multilingual (English–Chinese) qualitative data through and for dialogue: a dialogical approach

The Dialogical Approach to Multilingual Qualitative Data Analysis proposes a novel analytical method to researchers conducting fieldwork that spans multiple linguistic boundaries in a context where the research methods literature offers little guidance. The approach allows teams of researchers to analyse multilingual data together, without the prior translation into English of non-English data. The analysis is conducted collaboratively, through a dialogical approach where researchers dialogue around their individual understandings of the multilingual data. Through that process, they aim to deepen mutual understanding of the phenomena of interest, while opening a ‘dialogical space’ where novel insights can be generated collaboratively. As a result, meaning-making into phenomena that cross linguistic and socio-cultural boundaries can draw from - and retain - the multiplicity of meanings from multilingual data, without the reductionist impact of analysis that relies on translation into English. This approach answers calls for better accounting of linguistic diversity in scholarly research.