What is the place of interpretation in text analysis? An example using ALCESTE® software

Lucile Montalescot (1) , K. Lamore (2) , C. Flahault (3) , A. Untas (3)

1 APSY-V - Laboratoire Activités Physiques et Sportives et processus PSYchologiques : recherches sur les Vulnérabilités / Université de Nîmes
2 SCALab - Laboratoire Sciences Cognitives et Sciences Affectives - UMR 9193
3 LPPS (URP_4057) - Laboratoire de Psychopathologie et Processus de Santé

Statistical text analyses appear at the borderline of quantitative and qualitative research, raising epistemological questions in the field. This paper focuses on a specific method of text analysis: the Reinert method. It aims to address the role of interpretation and subjectivity in the construction of the results using this kind of analysis. To this end, this manuscript presents a dual interpretation of a same corpus and software outputs highlighting the convergences and divergences in both researchers’ interpretations. It discusses how the use of statistics on qualitative data may provide a false sense of objectivity and sweep the questions of interpretation and epistemology away. Finally, it offers clear guidelines regarding individual and dual interpretation to those who wish to start using the Reinert method. We argue that this type of analysis is adaptable and can be applied across a variety of epistemological stances and research questions.

Domains: Psychology; Methods and statistics

Lucile Montalescot, K. Lamore, C. Flahault, A. Untas. What is the place of interpretation in text analysis? An example using ALCESTE® software. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 2024, pp.1-26. ⟨10.1080/14780887.2024.2316624⟩. ⟨hal-04512832⟩