The interviews and focus groups should certainly be conducted in the language (or languages) that the participants are most comfortable speaking. In my case, when working with Russian-speakers, I use Russian, a language that I learned as an adult for my research. Though I can participate in discussions and even lead interviews in Russian, I would nonetheless get a native speaker to transcribe the interviews in the language and then would work with native speakers to understand some of the nuances of what is said before translating sections for inclusion in publications.

The interviews and focus groups should certainly be conducted in the language (or languages) that the participants are most comfortable speaking. In my case, when working with Russian-speakers, I use Russian, a language that I learned as an adult for my research. Though I can participate in discussions and even lead interviews in Russian, I would nonetheless get a native speaker to transcribe the interviews in the language and then would work with native speakers to understand some of the nuances of what is said before translating sections for inclusion in publications.

Dear Molefe, sometime local language have a diverse meaning and sometime give us a new perspective on our analysis and interpretation

Well, it is dangerous to just go on and use the local language - when you seek ethics approval to conduct research and especially in case of translation - you are required to provide the professional translation (both ways) - i.e. from English to the other language and from the other language to English - thus no misunderstanding of substitution of any concepts, phrases or words.

Regards

Theodora Issa

Depends on the language of your writings but should be translated if it is taken in another language

Attia

Of course - but I have considered that the original research is in English and responded accordingly in line with the ongoing procedure with ethics here.

Thanks and regards

Theodora Issa

Since a major focus of qualitative research and more specifically the interview tool is content, so local language use is an advantage with some restrictions. These restrictions could be explained in terms of validity and reliability of the measurement tool. For instance, content validity where a researcher needs to make sure that zero deviation has been achieved. In other words, the content and the targeted data has not been affected neither by the use of the local language in the first stage nor during the translation process in the second stage.

With best regards,