Teaching Document

1. Hermeneutic as a Research Method
How to do research using Hermeneutic approach
Dr. Felice Addeo
Department of Political, Social and Communication Science
University of Salerno – Italy
mail: faddeo@unisa.it; feliceaddeo@libero.it

2. - Hermeneutic as a Research Method
- Epistemological foundations
- The Roles of Researcher Interviewer and Interviewee
- How to conduct a research with Hermeneutic Approach
- How to conduct and analyze an Interview
- How to interpret Interview transcripts
- Criticism to Hermeneutic Approach
Contents

3. Hermeneutics and Social Science
Social science could be considered as a 'double hermeneutic‘ process:
“a mutual interpretative interplay between social science and those whose activities
compose its subject matter” (Giddens, 1984)
“all social actors, it can properly be said, are social theorists, who alter their theories in the
light of experience’ (Giddens, 1984) - part of which experience is social theory.
“The social sciences deal with a pre-interpreted world; they stand in a subject–subject
relation to their “field of study.” Their field of study is the pre-interpreted world of the
social actors. The social actors uphold and develop the symbolic social world; the social
actors’ symbolic world enters into the construction and production of that world. In this
sense the construction of social theory involves a double hermeneutic. [Giddens 1993, 154;
Habermas 1981, 159, 162 (1984, 107, 110)]. The social scientist must interpret a social
world which already exhibits symbolic meaning” (in Weinert, 2009).

4. Hermeneutics and Social Science
Thomas Theorem (1928)
If men define situations as real, they
are real in their consequences

5. Hermeneutic as a Research Method
main goal of Hermeneutic approach is to explore and
analyze the lifeword of people, using qualitative
method, and non directive interviewing
techniques to collect information
(Montesperelli, 1998)

6. Qualitative Method
Wilhelm Dilthey
Natural Sciences (Naturwissenschaft) aim at explaining phenomena in terms of cause and
effect (erklaren).
Human Sciences (Geisteswissenschaften) could not completely follow the explanation model.
Psychological, social, and historical aspects are crucial in order to have a greater knowledge.
That is why Human Sciences should aim more at understand and interpret (verstehen) rather
than explain in order to study social phenomena. Both kind of Sciences are human product,
however Natural sciences tend to abstract away from the life-context, while it is the primary
object of inquiry in the human sciences.
There is Empathy between Researchers/Scientists and Research Subjects as they share the
same common human nature.
Wilhelm Windelband
He distinguishes between Nomothetic and Idiographic Science
Nomothetic = to find universal laws that explain phenomena and to generalize the results
Idiographic = to analyze contingent, unique, and often subjective phenomena, appraising their
uniqueness

7. Qualitative Method
Heinrich Rickert
In his intellectual and judgmental activity, a researcher is guided by Wertbeziehungen (value-
relevance).
Max Weber
All social phenomena have no unique and clear explanation.
Every researchers try to explain (Verursachung) a social phenomenon, they do it on the basis of
his own values and interests.
All the explanations could not be judged as absolutely true or false: they are more or less
adequate.
“There is no absolutely "objective" scientific analysis of culture... All knowledge of cultural
reality... is always knowledge from particular points of view. ... an "objective" analysis of
cultural events, which proceeds according to the thesis that the ideal of science is the
reduction of empirical reality to "laws," is meaningless... [because]... the knowledge of social
laws is not knowledge of social reality but is rather one of the various aids used by our minds
for attaining this end” - Max Weber, "Objectivity" in Social Science, 1897 (ref. Wikipedia).
Karl Pearson, surely not a qualitative researcher, defined the concept of causation as an
unscientific and metaphysical speculation.

8. Qualitative Epistemology
- Phenomenology and Constructivism could be considered as the main epistemological and
philosophical perspectives of qualitative method
- Phenomenon: (tò phainòmenon) = what appear = Phenomenology focuses on subjective
experiences and interpretations of the world, because we can only know how things appear
to us and to the others and NOT how they really are: even if there is an “essence” of the
things (objects, subjects), this essence is not accessible to human understanding.
- Constructivism: reality is socially constructed, i.e. is not given by nature but it is the result of
dynamic process that is reproduced by people acting on their interpretations and their
knowledge of it
consequences
There is no immediate relation between Knower and Known: this relation is mediated by the
meaning: «There is no perception without something being perceived» (E. Husserl)
Kant: meanings are not copies of reality but a mean to dominate intellectually it
Weber: reality is chaotic and self-contradictory, meanings help human beings in selecting,
reducing, ordering, and making sense of complexity: “all knowledge of cultural reality, as may
be seen, is always knowledge from particular points of view”
there is no separation between Knower and Known as they share the same cultural horizon

9. Qualitative Method features
- in-depth understanding of human behavior, actions, motivations, representations,
attitudes, values, explicit and tacit knowledge
- Interest in the meaning, i.e. how people make sense of their lives, experiences, and their
visions of the reality
- reduce the distance between the researcher and the subjects being studied
- preference for the study of “Micro” problems
- Inductive or Abductive reasoning = not follow the hypothesis-verification process, but be
open to listening, dialogue and, above all, unexpected
- Hidiographic (each subject is a world apart and he is not fungible) and Holistic (each subject
is considered as a coherent whole) orientation – no strict need for statistical generalization
- dependence from the social and cultural context in which the research is conducted
- as there are no highly standardized and coded data collection and analysis procedures,
greatest importance is attached to the skills and the competences of the researcher(s), i.e.
to the researcher’s personal knowledge and to his capability of empathic understanding

10. Hermeneutics: the word “Hermeneutics” generally refers to text interpretation, especially in the fields of
Religion and Law.
Schleiermacher widened the domain of Hermeneutics not only to sacred or legal texts, but to all human
documents and modes of communication.
Heidegger shifted the focus of Hermeneutics from interpretation to existential understanding (ontology
before gnoseology) – Heidegger developed the concept of Hermeneutic Circle: It refers to the idea that
one's understanding of the text as a whole is established by reference to the individual parts and one's
understanding of each individual part by reference to the whole.
Gadamer and Ricouer finally stated that hermeneutics could be applied to all human activities
“Hermeneutics is the theory of the operations of understanding in their relation to the interpretation of
texts” (Ricoeur,1992)
So, in Social Science, the domain of Hermeneutics has been gradually extended to the study of every act
or process involving interpretation: verbal and nonverbal communication, as pre-suppositions, pre-
understandings, and son on.
Nowadays, relying on phenomenological and constructivist epistemologies, Hermeneutic has finally
become a social research method.
Hermeneutics

11. Hermeneutics is considered also like the “art of interpretation” – interpreting and
understanding are not only ways of knowing, they are the ways people deal with reality
‘Explanation is a necessary step for understanding. We always explain in order to better
understand. A text must be explained in its internal structure before being understood in its
relation to the interest it arouses and to which it responds. It is no different for a value or a
group of values. But the opposite is just as true. If understanding passes through explanation,
explanation is completed in understanding’ (Ricoeur, 1992 quoted in Schwabenland, 2006 ).
As we interpret, we do not knowing the real essence of things, but their meanings.
Meanings are:
- not given, but develop in conversation
- socially constructed
- constantly being created in the interaction
(Bowens, 1997)
Hermeneutics

12. «Is the meaning of our experiences, and not the ontological structure of objects, that
constitutes reality» (Schütz) - The “essence” of things is not intelligible or approachable.
Meanings have an intersubjective nature: externalizing the meanings makes them objects of a
reality that is constructed (Berger and Luckman) – for example: “shared meanings constructed
by people in their interactions with each other and used as an everyday resource to interpret
the meaning of elements of social and cultural life. If people share common sense, then they
share a definition of the situation” (wikipedia)
“Meanings may be shared by the members of small groups and communities but unclear to
outsiders. The same words can mean different things to different people; different words can
mean the same things. Meaning is elusive. Even within groups meanings may be contested”
(Schwabenland, 2006)
Horizon of Historical and Linguistic tradition: before comprehending, the man is comprehended
into the Historical and Linguistic Horizon.
Hermeneutics

13. The most important thing is to unfold what constitutes individual comprehension. Gadamer
points out in this context that prejudice is a (nonfixed) reflection of that unfolding
comprehension, and is not per se without value. Being alien to a particular tradition is a
condition of understanding. Gadamer points out that we can never step outside of our
tradition; all we can do is try to understand it (wikipedia)
‘He [sic] who seeks to understand his own tradition or that of other cultures can only do so
from his own, particular standpoint; his “prejudices” not only restrict his vision but enable it.
In the act of understanding the vision is both enlarged and corrected, at the same time
making the speaker explicitly aware of these prejudices, which are not just peripheral but
constitute the very core of our peculiarity’ (Mehta, 1992 in Schwabenland, 2012)
Hermeneutics

14. Pre-comprehensions constitute the historical and linguistic horizon preceding, orienting and
fullfilling every act of understanding and interpreting.
Hegel: pre-comprehensions are the social Institutions: law, ethics, family, civil society, state, ad
so on.
Dilthey: extended the concept of pre-comprehensions, including language, habits, morality,
and lifestyles
Husserl: lifeworld is the most important form of pre-comprehension
Heidegger and Gadamer: pre-comprehensions are first ontological and the gnoseological:
before comprehending (understanding), man is comprehendend (included) into his historical
and linguistic horizon; this is the limitation of the man as knower: you cannot leave your
horizon to gain an objective or absolute knowledge.
Knower and known share the same horizon: this allows the former to (try to) understand the
latter.
That is why, in Hermeneutics, pre-comprehension and pre-judice have no negative acceptation
Hermeneutics

15. main goal of Hermeneutic approach is to explore and analyze the lifeworld of individuals
Lifeworld (Lebenswelt) (Scheler, Husserl; Berger & Luckmann; Schütz)
“the world as immediately or directly experienced in the subjectivity of everyday life, as
sharply distinguished from the objective "worlds" of the sciences, which employ the methods
of the mathematical sciences of nature; although these sciences originate in the life-world,
they are not those of everyday life” (Britannica).
“the sum total of physical surroundings and everyday experiences that make up an
individual's world” (Merriam Webster).
Lifeworld

16. Lifeworld could also be thought as:
Cognitive map to orient oneself in daily life
Common sense, i.e. storage of permanent symbolic forms
Pragmatic cognitive style
Basic knowledge, mostly implicit and “natural”
Finite province of meaning = according to Schütz life is experienced through different «finite
province of meaning». In other words, there are multiple reality helping people to organize
their experiences within a complex and multidimensional reality
Each finite province of meaning (religion, science, politics, and so on) gives sense to a precise
frame of reality and do not depend on the ontological structure of the objects belonging to a
specific domain, they depend on the meaning people give to those objects and to their
personal experience in each different province (Schütz)
Lifeworld

17. In Humans Science Lifeworld has been reevaluated = from daily as anonymity to
daily as a rich source of knowledge (Heidegger)
• «there were gods there too» (Heraclitus)
• Lifeworld as pure expression of middle class culture (Lefebvre 1977)
• Crisis of ideologies  reevaluation of social reproduction, daily life, and so on 
new conflicts centered on identity, personal needs, experiences (Heller 1970,
Crespi 1977-78, Melucci 1984)
Lifeworld

18. Science, originated from Lifeworld; positivism removed this origin and
wanted to take lifeworld place in order to orient mankind and make
sense of reality (Husserl):
People belong to science and they are reduced to a simple research
object: this would be the very meaning of mankind.
Scientific method and its results are made absolute
Return to Lifeworld  Critical Spirit (Husserl, Foucault, Habermas,
Derrida, Garfinkel)
Lifeworld and Science

19. Individual is not born as a member of society; he is born predisposed for sociality,
and he becomes a member of society through socialization (Berger and Luckmann)
Individual interiorizes language, norms, values of a social reality that is partly given =
it is a background knowledge one can draw on without starting every time from the
beginning
Individual is guided by cognitive premises = pre-judices, i.e., judgments preceding
every single/individual judgment (Gadamer)
Common Social Sphere= everything appear as given, that is the individual has a
horizon of significance and understanding that seems so strong to appear as natural
and steady
Lifeworld is a world of intersubjective meanings, shared and constructed by subjects
Lifeworld development

20. Lifeworld premises are not call into question = they seem so obvious to be considered not
worth of attention and reflection
Individuals usually take the “natural attitude” = EPOCHÉ
In daily life, no one wonders if lifeworld is real or is just a system of appearances
Lifeworld requires the «suspension of doubt» to be maintained = physical perceptions and
social rules seem universal and evident.
“man with the natural attitude also uses a specific epoché, of course quite another one, than
the phenomenologist. He does not suspend belief in the outer world and its objects but on the
contrary: he suspends doubt in its existence. What he puts in brackets is the doubt that the
world and its objects might be otherwise than it appears to him. We propose to call this the
epoché of the natural attitude” (Schutz).
Lifeworld premises

21. Some cognitive strategies help people to maintain the suspension of doubt
Repetition = to repeat gestures, actions, cycles and rhythms of life, making them some sort of
like daily routines  the (unaware) aim is to dilate the Present and dispel the idea of change
Typification = to represent real situations with the aid of classification, i.e., to reduce the
complexity of reality by placing a specific and unique experience into a general category of
knowledge
Annihilation= to deny the inner world in order to affirm it (a person says he is atheist while
having an inner religious afflatus)
Reification = to perceive/conceive products of human action as if they were not human (ex.
Institutions, value systems, Society, Religion, and so on)
These cognitive strategies absolutize the lifeworld and cover its limitations
however
A too rigid lifeworld would easily and continuously disappear as reality is flexible, mutable and
unpredictable, so the suspension of doubt could be interrupted if a big changes occur.
Lifeworld cognitive strategies

22. - Starting with a Concept Map
- The central role of the interviewee
- How to select interviewees
- The roles of Researcher and Interviewer
- How to conduct a Hermeneutic interview
- How to analyze and interpret a Hermeneutic interview
- Criticism to Hermeneutic Approach
Doing Research with Hermeneutic Approach

23. Right after the literature review, in the effort of translating the theoretical frame into
something that could be examined empirically (operationalization), it is very useful to recap
what has been read, and to organize the research concepts and ideas, using a concept map.
Concept map is general research scheme and it could be seen as a way of representing
relations among research concepts/dimensions. Specifically, it is a taxonomic diagram where
each concept is connected to another and linked back to the original idea. Concept maps are
a way to develop logical thinking and enhance meaningful learning in the sciences.
Operationally, it is useful to identify measurable concepts (Marradi, 2007).
A similar procedure of concept mapping is widely used in education as an informal process
whereby an individual draws a picture of all the ideas related to some general theme or
question, showing how these are related (Novak, Gowin, 1997; Novak, 1998; Jackson,
Trochim, 2002)
Using a concept map (in qualitative, quantitative or mixed method research) will help:
- Clarify theoretical framework
- Build data collection technique (i.e. interview guide)
- Interpret and Analyze Data and Interview transcripts
Using a Concept Map to help your research design

24. 24
Research subject: Immigrants’ needs
Unit of Analysis: Immigrants from different Countries living in the province of Salerno - Italy
Concept Map
Using a Concept Map to help your research design
Big Oval
Research purpose / Research Question
Smaller Ovals
Relevant Research
Dimensions
Rectangles
empirical indicators
i.e. concepts that
will be effectively
surveyed

25. As the interviewee is the only expert of his lifeworld, in the Hermeneutic approach he has
the central role in the whole research process: the interviewee sets the rules and the
times of the interview as he weaves the narrative nets of his experiences.
So the classical interview situation is upset: the interviewer has no more a hegemonic role
over the interviewee (i.e. the usual asymmetric power relation is virtually dissolved).
Qualitative interviewing techniques are the most suitable to collect narrations because
they allow the interviewees to express their visions of the world using their own personal
way of communicating.
Interviewee could activate a biographical reconstruction process of his identity: he
narrates himself, he reflects on his existence and he is finally able to place it in a wider
context in which suspensions of doubt mechanisms are unveiled.
Central role of the Interviewee

26. From a methodological point of view, the central role of the interviewee implies that
- potentially, everything interviewee says is important and worth analyzing
- it is important not only what he tells, but also HOW: means of expressions should be
deeply analyzed
- Non directive techniques are more advisable as they are flexible and adaptable
- Researcher and Interviewer has to be highly skilled: they should have hermeneutic
sensitivity and maieutic skill
Central role of the Interviewee

27. Hermeneutic Sensitivity is a «skill» that every social researcher, also the quantitative ones,
should have.
Hermeneutic Sensitivity cannot be taught or derived from general principles, but depends
on the cultivation of individuals and their common sense (Gadamer)
Hermeneutic Sensitivity should be «socratically» considered as
- to be aware of your own limitations ("I know that I know nothing")
- Ethical sensitivity = listening as constitutive element of every dialogue
- Pedagogical sensitivity= maieutic dimension, that is helping the others to reach and
express their inner knowledge
(Montesperelli, 1998)
Social Researchers should practice the art of listening, establishing an equal relationship
with the interviewees: only taking into account your own presuppositions, it is possible to
know the of the others’ presuppositions.
Hermeneutic Sensitivity

28. Interviewer Role in Hermeneutic Approach
⁻ plays a maieutic role, so the interviewer should minimize interruptions and od few but
effective interventions
⁻ must make interviewer comfortable
⁻ should be skilled, experienced, motivated , creative and hermeneutic sensitivity
⁻ must REALLY listen: “Hearing is physiological phenomenon, listening is a psychological act”
⁻ has to know very well the research goals, should have an active role in the research group
⁻ has a flexible interview guide and he should be able to adjust it according to interviewees
⁻ should pay attention both to verbal and non verbal communication
⁻ should gather also extra-contextual information about the interview setting and conduction
⁻ above all, interviewer must transcribe the interviews

29. in qualitative research interviewees are selected with NON probability sampling because
1) data collection technique are complex and time- and resource- consuming , so is it not
possible to have huge sample
2) there is no epistemological and gnoseological need to infer from the sample to the
population.
Most common non probability sampling used in Hermeneutic approach are:
Convenience sampling : interviewees are chosen based on their relative ease of access (too
objectionable: better to use ONLY in a very preliminary explorative stage or when the all the
others sampling method are not applicable)
Judgmental or Purposive sampling: the researcher chooses the interviewees based on who
they think would be appropriate for the study, i.e. according to some properties he would like
to be represented in the sample (i.e. gender, education, and so on)
How to select Interviewees

30. Snowball sampling: existing interviewees help researcher in recruiting other interviewees from
among their acquaintances.
This sampling is appropriate to use in research when the members of a population are difficult
to locate (es. underground cultures, hidden population).
Sampling terminates when “saturation” is reached, i.e. when the collection of new data does
not shed any further light on the issue under investigation “(Glaser & Strauss; Bertaux)
Disadvantages of this sampling are:
- Overrepresentation of the social circles related the first participants (the ones who started
the snowball) (solution: choose many different «starting point»)
- It is difficult to understand if the «saturation» point has been effectively reached
How to select Interviewees

31. How to conduct an Hermeneutic Interview
To conduct an Hermeneutic Interview it is sufficient to have a simple and flexible guideline in
which the main research topics and subtopics are listed, eventually with some questions that
could be asked if necessary.
Interview guideline is useful, but it has not to be rigidly followed.
Interviewer should let the interview flows as a normal conversation, without following a
sequential scheme, eventually introducing those topics and subtopics not faced by the
interviewee yet.
The same suggestions are useful when conducting a normal non directive interview.
Interview ‘s topics and subtopics can be chosen easily if using a research concept map
Interview guideline ( very brief summary)
topics
Sociodemographic
Migratory Project
Actual condition
Needs
Integration

32. How to conduct an Hermeneutic Interview
First question is crucial: it is your calling card
Avoid too direct questions as they may be too threatening or disturbing
Also avoid dichotomous questions (yes/no), they will freeze the interaction
Better to ask broad question and/or a factual question
Remember that Interviewees should feel comfortable
It could be useful to establish an empathic relationship with interviewees asking them for
suggestions about a common problem or involving them into the comment of a picture or
a document
Speech flow should be similar to everyday conversation, as this is more familiar to the
interviewee and nearer to his lifewolrd
It is better to avoid chit-chatting: interviewee could be demotivated and, above all,
research will be lessened

33. How to conduct an Hermeneutic Interview
According to the principle of the «central role of the interviewee», all that interviewee
says is important and has to be recorded
Interviewer must always remember that interview in social research is not an
interrogation or a test; interviewee must be respected: is the main actor and has the
knowledge we want to know
Interviewer must listen to the interviewee with attention, interest, patience and humility
Interviewer must never express authoritative opinion (judgment, admonitions, etc.)
Interviewee should always be allowed to hesitate or take a break (short or long) (to
overcome the horror vacui (fear of not being able to say something interesting), to avoid
anxiety, haste, and to prevent form all the other things that could cause biases)
If asked, Interviewer will express opinions and evaluations only when the interview is over.
If the interviewee appears to be stimulated by the answers, the interview should be
reprised
Never attempt to prolong an interview: it is better to divide it in two or more sessions

34. How to transcribe a Hermeneutic Interview
Polisemy
Verbal/Linguistic more evident, manifest, structured,
Paralanguage (voice quality, rate, pitch,
volume, and speaking style, as well as
prosodic features such as rhythm, intonation,
and stress);
Kinesics e Mimicry
(movement and body position);
Proxemics (how people use and perceive the
physical space around them);
Dressing
less evident, manifest, structured
( difficult to decode);
Strengthen or modify what has been said
give information on the interaction and the
relationship between the interview’s actors
Interviewee’s narration is a oral text, its transcript is a written text, that is why Hermeneutics
is crucial in understanding and interpreting interviews
Narration is a polysemous text, produced with the aid of different codes, when analyzing the
narrations as a text, all linguistic aspects should be considered: syntactic, semantic,
pragmatics, meanings, codes, and so on

35. How to transcribe a Hermeneutic Interview
WHY
The transcription of the interview is fundamental in order to analyze it
Transcribing means to create a written text, i.e. to objectivize the speech so that it will be
always available hic et nunc (Berger and Luckmann)
Transcription allows to analyze the speech in a better way:
- words could be separated and their order modified, narration could be back-warded and
eventually develop syllogistic form of reasoning (Ricoeur)
- researcher could clarify his concepts and develop new ideas
- if the transcription is given to the interviewee, it is possible to activate his reflexivity
Keep in mind that «Transcription is a form of TRANSLATION» (and translation is always
betrayal)
Translation is never a mere transposition of word from a language to another as it is almost
impossible to produce a text that is fully congruent with the original one.
Every transcription/translation attempts to combine different languages, communication
strategies, socio-cultural background  every transcription is an interpretative act!

36. How to transcribe a Hermeneutic Interview
WHEN
Someone suggests to transcribe during the interview = illusion of higher conformity
BUT
It is very difficult to interact with the interviewee and transcribe his speech at the same time:
⁻ Something is always missing
⁻ Interviewee may feel threatened, disturbed or frightened
BETTER transcribe when the interview is over as, usually, speech is tape and or video recorded
This allows researcher to have an empirical basis more congruent with all that has been said
during the interview (verbal and non verbal communication)
WHO
Interview MUST be transcribed by the Interviewer because she/he knows better:
⁻ how interaction developed
⁻ the environment and the socio-cultural context
⁻ the verbal and non verbal communication and all the other aspects of the interaction that
have not been tape or video recorded

37. How to transcribe a Hermeneutic Interview
WHAT
Transcription is a time consuming activity however the general criteria is to transcribe literally
every word said by the interview.
Researcher/transcriber must never try to «embellish» the speech or «put it into an order»: ill-
formed expressions, repetitions, regional accent or dialectal word should be kept as they give
more (and fundamental) information about the interviewer’s lifeword.
The non verbal communication forms to be included into the transcription have to be careful
selected as it is not possible, neither useful to use it all. Moreover, a text reporting every
possible non verbal code will be not understandable and readable.
That is why transcription should be done having always in mind the research goals.
“This decision will be largely dictated by the purpose the material will serve in your research.
A dialectician will be concerned with pronunciation, an historian probably will not be. A
psychologist doing detailed discourse analysis will be interested in the length of every pause
and the exact number and location of every "uh" and "er"; a journalist might not require this
kind of detail at all”.
Usually, in social research, a restricted set of conventional codes is used

38. How to interpet a Hermeneutic Interview
Interview Transcript is a complex text as it includes
⁻ Narrations of events, objects, people, facts from the interviewer’s lifeworld
⁻ Nonverbal communication codes
⁻ Interactions among the interview’ actors (interviewee, interviewers, other people)
⁻ Field notes and observations from the interviewer
⁻ Definition of situation (Goffman)
Interview Transcription is a polysemous text differing from the original one as
It is written so it is an interpretation of the original oral speech
It could be far (sometimes very far) from the interviewee’s intentions = the interviewee
could not agree with the transcription of his speech as «she/he may do not find/identify
himself» , so:
transcripts tends to be scarcely adequate
«Adequacy principle»(Weber; Schütz) = researcher’s transcriptions and interpretations
should be re-submitted to the interviewees

39. When interpreting a text, one should consider that there are different
intentions, i.e., according to Eco(1984) that textual interpretation is
“polyvocal”, i.e. has more than one voice.
Intentio auctoris- the author = the meanings the author wanted to instill into
his text
Intentio operis - the text = what the internal mechanisms of the text allow us
to say about it
Intentio lectoris – the reader = what the reader interprets from the text
How to interpret a Hermeneutic Interview

40. How to interpret a Hermeneutic Interview
«Adequacy principle»: interviewee feels that the relationship with the written text of the speech
and the interpretation made by the researcher is both familiar and strange.
However, interviewee could not be the only judge of the transcritption/interpretation as it often
happens that the interpretation made by the researcher allow to «understand the text better
than its author» (Schleiermacher)
there is dialogical-dialectical interchange between interpreter (researcher) and
interpretandum (text as objectification of interviewee’s speech), between self and other,
between familiarity and strangeness (Gadamer).
Hermeneutic interpretation «proceeds through iterative cycles of explanation and
understanding, of text, and context and of understanding of the other and understanding of the
self» (Schwabenland)
«Adequacy principle» is rarely applied, even if it could be very useful to the researcher to:
 Understand better the Interviewee’s point of view;
 Refine the interpretation
 Discover the potentialities and the limitations of the research

41. How to interpret a Hermeneutic Interview
«Interpreting a text is like a walk in the Woods» – Umberto Eco
Eco uses this metaphor to set the limits of the interpretation activity.
Just as woods is not a private garden, Interpretation is not a private affair, it is a public activity and it should
follow some rules. Above all in social research.
Some criteria for interpreting
Avoid aberrant decoding = a message is interpreted differently from what was intended by its sender = in
social research it happens when the researcher tends to favor information that confirms her/his beliefs or
ideas (Confirmation Bias).
Have always in mind the Research cognitive objectives (i.e. research goals)
Parsimony and Relevance: a text could say many thing, but not all are interesting or correct (some of them
could be totally misleading or wrong) = first discard all the and then try the choose among the remaining the
most relevant one.
Intersubjective agreement within the relevant scientific community
Consider the to what degree the text is autonomous
Refer to the Hermeutic Cicle = one's understanding of the text as a whole is established by reference to the
individual parts and one's understanding of each individual part by reference to the whole
Use concept maps, metaphors, typology and classifications

42. How to analyze a Hermeneutic Interview
1) Transcribe all the interviews
2) Interpret them by:
- reading each of one them carefully
- selecting and commenting the most relevant excerpts from each one
- controlling the interpretation of the excerpts
- considering all the interviews together to sum up the findings
3) Write down a report synthesizing your findings
Concept Map could be useful in selecting the excerpts (they could be placed be under one of
the «ovals»)

43. How to analyze a Hermeneutic Interview
EXAMPLE OF A COMMENT
Needs
Legal and bureaucratic aid seems to be the most
urgent need for the majority of the immigrants that
were interviewed:
«I don’t need anything but legal aid to help me
getting through those…BORING AND STUPID official
documents»
(Female, Ukraine, 50, caregiver)
« Italian Bureaucracy is so slow and complicated [she
sighs]… I really need help»
(Female, Belarus, 43, day laborer)
Researcher recaps the results
in a comment
Excerpts are included to
reinforce the findings.
Few but significant excerpts
should be chosen and
commented
Nonverbal communication =
1st Interviewee raised up her voice to express her
disappointment
(word in capital letters)
2nd interview stops for sighing as she feel disheartened

44. How to control results
In Hermeneutic Approach, researcher is interested both in WHAT and HOW is narrated
Thomas Theorem = If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences = if an
interviewee is telling something we believe is wrong we should not correct it, but try to
understand how this subjective perception influence is actions.
Conformity = to what extent “reality” and the narration of lifeworld coincide
criteria to check the conformity are:
Relevance = to what extent the subjective construction of interviewee’s reality (lifeworld) is an
expression of her/his aspirations, beliefs, ambitions, attitudes, behaviors, social representations
Coherence = internal (checking the facts and the events narrated in a single interview) and
external (among different interviews narrating the same subject)
Memory = check the influence of personal event memory on the narration of events – meanings
given to Present may influence the memory of past events
Conformity check could be done using triangulation procedures
Congruency = degree of agreement between two or more interpretations of the same excerpt
made by different researchers
Generalization = not in a statical sense, it refers to what extent it is possible to extend the
research findings to other similar research subjects/socio-cultural context/situations

45. truthfulness of narration =
interviewees may say things that we
know are not true, incorrect or
despicable
Interpretative intervention of the
researcher
the empirical basis is not avaliable
Generalization is not possible
Main goal of Hermeneutic approach is to explore individual
lifeworld, which is made by beliefs, prejudices, common
sense, and all the other cognitive mechanism of identity
confirmation – Hermeneutic Approach is more interested
in how these beliefs, perceptions, opinions could shape
interviewee’s lifeworld and influence his behavior (Thomas
Theorem)
Every act ok knowing is also an act of interpretation = the
affirm the contrary is to believe in a blind objectivism
Every researcher should expose the Analysis and
Interpretation procedures used (publicity criterion)
Interview transcripts could be made available
Methodological rigor is the only guarantee of “objectivity”
The same goes for the quantitative approach
Statistical generalization is not an objective of this
approach
It is a controversial subject even for the quantitative
research (Marradi)
Criticism of Hermeneutic Approach and replies