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Cross-linguistic interviews are an essential component to ethnographic research. After all, listening to an individual describe their life using their native language is one of the best methods of understanding a culture. In order to obtain a well-rounded view of the culture, a researcher might conduct hundreds of hours of interviews.

On top of writing articles, attending conferences, and teaching students, sorting through a large volume of audio is a daunting task. In addition, it’s extremely difficult to glean essential information from these recordings. Therefore, researchers seek to transcribe their audio into document files, which are easy to search and use in quotations. These transcripts function as valuable primary source documents, enriching the observations of the researcher, and in many cases, they help to record and preserve oral traditions.

Dr. Michael Genzuk, the Director of the Center for Multilingual, Multicultural Research at the University of Southern California, wrote a paper that offers a thorough introduction to ethnographic research. He highlights some good tips for recording interviews:

• Take audio recordings as often as you can, which helps to capture exact quotes.
• Check your recorder before and after interviews for malfunctions and battery life.
• Allow the interviewee to tell their story, and enjoy the interview.

Read Dr. Genzuk’s full paper here. You can also follow him on Twitter here.