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theoretical research processes that cannot be disassembled into comprehensible manual
operations. Extensive mathematical knowledge might be necessary even to understand the
elements of the research process. Therefore, in some interviews with theoretical physicists we
had to rely on global descriptions because we didn’t sufficiently comprehend the mathematics.
3.3 Negotiating the level of communication
Each interview begins with a phase of implicit negotiations. Part of these negotiations is that
the interviewer suggests a vocabulary for the pidgin, which is changed by the interviewee’s
responses. In this introductory phase, while it is being negotiated what technical terms can be
used by the scientists so they are properly understood by the interviewer, it is simultaneously
negotiated how scientific an explanation may be for it still to be understood by the interviewer.
This negotiation phase has been experienced by Zuckerman:
Intensive preparation brings growing familiarity with the technical language developed by the laureates. In
the early phase of most interviews, the laureates tried to avoid the use of language I might not understand.
When given cues that they would be understood – particularly by my using such terms – they relaxed and
their vocabulary more closely approximated their usual one. …
The scientific language as well as the trade vernacular was used to convey the sense that the laureate was not
talking to a total alien. It was not intended to convey expertedness on the part of the interviewer and did not
seem to be perceived as such an attempt. (Zuckerman 1972: 170)
The introductory phase of the following interview from a project on East German basic research
(Gläser 1998, 2000) is an instructive example of carelessness in the negotiation phase. The
interviewer had done his homework but blunders in the introduction by asking shallow questions
and downplaying his preparation:
Q: The first question is: What are you currently working at, that means, your department? I have read a bit in
your yearly report, but I am a layperson in physics. What I have found out is that you are dealing with laser
physics.
A: Yes.
Q: And, if I understood it correctly, primarily with the development of methods?
A: Yes. And application of these methods.
Q: And application of these methods, too?
A: Yes, yes. It is of course the question how precise an answer you want. When you say you are a layperson,
then it is of course not really important for your investigation what we do in detail, but probably only a rough
description.
Q: Yes.
A: It is of a basic character and indeed aimed at the further development of certain methods of laser
spectroscopy, which can reveal very fast processes in molecules. …
But it is basic investigations, first steps, which are investigated. When we had nanoseconds it turned out that
the fastest reactions appeared to take nanoseconds. You know what a nanosecond is?
The interviewer presented himself twice as a rather uniformed layperson and was consequently
treated by the interviewee as such. The interviewee considered details of his work as unimportant
to the interviewer and explained his works as simple as possible. This created a problem for the
interviewer who needed detailed descriptions of the scientists work to answer his sociological
Convention