Language considerations

Ungerson (1996) indicated that in translating collected data, adopting correct language could reduce the misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the data. Acquadro et al (1996) emphasized the important of the researcher’s consideration of the national contexts, cultural perceptions and linguistic knowledge in the varieties of the target

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language. Moreover, Ungerson (1996) suggested researcher’s personal experience and intuition could help to handle response categories and translations.. The studies above proved one point, which is that it is very difficult to fully understand the meaning of the language without considering broader cultural contexts embodied in the use of language.

In this study, interviews with Teachers B, D and E were carried out in Chinese, as they thought using this language would make them feel more comfortable and help them to represent their ideas easily and correctly. The information they gave about their teaching in England was more or less affected by their living and working experiences in China. Then, when research focused on translating data from Chinese to English, it should consider seriously Chinese school culture in order to find out the comparable ideas in English, in data transcription. In addition, although Teachers A and C were working and living in England for more than 10 years, compared to the other 3 teachers in interviews, their ways of evaluating issues were more close to western style, although traditional Chinese cultural values still influence their behaviours and ways of using language. Hence, to translate and interpret these contexts, making a disclosure of deeper meanings of culture and school culture in Chinese settings was necessary to be treated seriously. In interpreting Chinese into English, Bai (2007) shared some examples in her work:

‘face’ literally means the front of the head and outward appearance. In Chinese, its deeper meaning means the ‘glory’ (mian zi,面子) of a person

(Bond 1991). Another example, ‘control’ (guan, 管) always relates to

restraining or having power over something or someone; however, in Chinese, ‘control’ also means ‘to love’ or ‘to care for’ (Bai 2007, p.160)

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Ungerson (1996) was concerned with ensuring the problem of corrupted data in the translation process, as it is hard for most researchers to have command of more than one language and have clear understanding of the culture within different languages. Hence, when contextualizing the data, the translator needs to be engaged with the research, understand the topic in order to make translations meaningful.

In this study, on the one hand, the researcher needed to translate data from interviews with Teachers B, D and E from Chinese to English; on the other hand, according to most of the data gained in English, as a non-native speaker of English, the researcher was fully aware of the effect that an inadequate analysis and interpretation of language might cause.

According to the translated interview data from Chinese into English, firstly, as all the questions in the interviews were designed in English, it is important for me to find equivalent terms or vocabulary available in Chinese to help interviewees to present themselves more capably. Osborn (2004) also indicated that it is difficult to find exact equivalent terms or vocabulary available in different languages. In translating between two languages, it is important to find comparable ideas rather than words. For example, before conducting the interviews with Teacher B, on my first visit I considered that she seemed confused about the terms “curriculum” “strategy” and “scheme of work” during our discourse. Then, I found terms “课程设 置”，”教学大纲” and “课件” in Chinese and discussed them with teachers of English in China online to make sure I had found appropriate equivalent terms. During the interview, I explained those terms to Teacher B to prevent her

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misinterpretation, however, sometimes, it can be difficult to find equivalent terms or vocabulary to use in translation from Chinese into English. For example, when Teacher D talked about her first teaching in England:

‘…pupils were very organised and quite at the very beginning, however, after one third of the lesson, they were a bit out of control… I would like to stop them, however, the head of department was there and did not say anything… I think classroom management is her job… I am a kind of ‘thin skin’, it is really difficult for me to ask

her for help especially when she thought the situation was acceptable…’ (Interview note IT-SD)

The word “control” she mentioned shared the same explanation by Bai (2007) earlier in this section which means “to love” and “to care” rather than meaning of “to exercise restraint or direction over” “to hold in check” or “the act or power over” something in English. Furthermore, her reference to “thin skin”, meant that she is a shy person and does not want to bother other people too much. In this sense, the meaning of “thin skin” is irrelevant to the literal mean of the external covering of a human or animal body but more about people’s personal character, reputation, prestige and respect. Secondly, I carried out interviews; with recalling interviewee’s body language combined with my own understanding of Chinese culture and terms of language, I translated the interview data personally. Thirdly, I brought the transcriptions on my next school visit and invited the interviewee to comment on them to ensure the transcripts were accurate. Fourthly, a native English speaker who gained her PhD degree in English literature helped me to ensure that the language used in the transcriptions conveyed the meaning accurately. Finally, I read the data transcripts in English and highlighted relevant information, coded them for further interpreting to answer research questions.

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When dealing with the interviews and classroom observations data collected in English, the whole process was assisted by the native English speaker mentioned earlier. For the interview data, once the transcription was finished, first I invited interviewees to read them through and comment on them in order to make sure the content was correct and reliable. Following that, , the native English speaker listened to each interview recording carefully, with reference to the content of the transcription to ensure it covered all information mentioned by respondents. The native English speaker read through all transcriptions of interview data and classroom observation notes. In so doing, the process ensured the language used conveyed accurately both the linguistic issues and cultural context of English setting.

Consequently, in this study language considerations include researcher’s awareness of linguistic issues and culture embedded within languages in translation and transliteration, which aimed to reduce bias and minimise the misinterpretation and misunderstanding of original data.

Conclusion

In this chapter, the pragmatic research design of this research is articulated. It reflects the detailed discussion and justification of the chosen research methods to answer the research questions and the rationales on which they were based. Clarification and identification of research questions and aims are the next crucial step at the inception of the research. After that, the concepts and issues associated with the research purpose are defined. Following the review of the balance of strengths and weaknesses

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of qualitative and quantitative approaches, the determined research methods were incorporated into the mixed methods research design. At every stage throughout the whole research process, the considerations of validity and reliability instruments as well as their inherent ethical issues were a major consideration in all aspects of thought processes or in practice.

In the following chapters, a detailed presentation and discussion of the data will be presented, in order to interpret the data collected through the fieldwork.

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Chapter 4: Rationales for Introducing