Linguistic issues in survey research - The World Poll experience
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Linguistic issues in survey research - The World Poll experience
This document contains proprietary research, copyrighted materials, and literary property of Gallup, Inc. It is for the guidance of your company only and is not to be copied, quoted, published, or divulged to others outside of your organization. Gallup® and The Gallup Poll® are trademarks of Gallup, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
This document is of great value to both your organization and Gallup, Inc. Accordingly, international and domestic laws and penalties guaranteeing patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret protection protect the ideas, concepts, and recommendations related within this document.
No changes may be made to this document without the express written permission of Gallup, Inc.
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COPYRIGHT STANDARDS
Copyright © 2013 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.
World Poll
Doing translations in survey research
Languages in sub-Saharan Africa
Challenges and opportunities
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OVERVIEW
Nationally representative samples of population aged 15 and older: 1,000 interviews per country per year
Pure, probability-based selection of:– Interviewing locations (Primary Sample Units)– Households– Adult respondent in household (regardless of age/gender)
Coverage: 120-140 countries per year, both urban and rural areas
Face-to-face, hour-long interviews in respondent’s home in developing world
Random-digit-dial telephone surveys (20 minutes) in developed world
Margin of error: +/- 3%
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WORLD POLL – LARGEST INDEPENDENT SOURCE OF SURVEY RESEARCH
Copyright © 2013 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Wellbeing
Law and Order
Governance
Jobs/Employment
Economics
Community Attachment
Migration
WHAT WE ASK
Entrepreneurship
Food and Shelter
Infrastructure
Health
Social Networks
Civic Engagement
Country Stability
Copyright © 2013 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.
Keep questions simple
In the city or area where you live, do you have confidence in the local police force, or not?
Thinking about the job situation in the city or area where you live today, would you say that it is now a good time or a bad time to find a job?
Most World Poll questions are dichotomous – yes/no, satisfied/dissatisfied
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CRAFTING SURVEY QUESTIONS
Copyright © 2013 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.
Questionnaire
development
Translation
Pretest
Fieldwork
Data processing
Sampling
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WORLD POLL PROCESS
Preparation of core language questionnaires: English, French, Spanish, Arabic
Translations into all other World Poll languages – about 200
Independent review of translations: – 2 independent translations and a third party resolves
differences, OR– 1 person translates into target language, independent translator
back-translates to the source language, and a third party reviews/revises the translation
Language versions approved – Interviewers’ training starts followed by fieldwork
Interviewers must read the questionnaire word for word, spontaneous translations are not allowed
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TRANSLATIONS
Copyright © 2013 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.
COVERAGE – SUB-SAHARAN AFRICAN COUNTRIES
2013: 37 out of 56 African countries 95% of the population aged 15 and older
Since 2005-2006: Fielded at least one survey in every single country on the continent, except in: Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Gambia, Guinea- Bissau, São Tomé & Príncipe, Seychelles, South Sudan
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COVERAGE – LANGUAGES IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
Estimated number of African languages: 2035 (Grimes, 1996), or about 1/3 of all languages spoken around the world
Most are subdivided into dialects that are not mutually intelligible
In most countries, the linguistic diversity is very high:
Gabon - 40 languages - 1.5 million people – no real lingua franca DRC - 240 languages - 60 million people – 4 national languages
Most are unwritten languages National borders seldom correspond to linguistic
boundaries 10
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LANGUAGES IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
High linguistic diversity
Most Africans speak at least two languages
Language a person uses depends on the type of information to be communicated and to whom it is communicated
Social stratification of languages:
Official Vehicular/Regional Mother tongue/Local
AFRICAN LANGUAGES IN THE WORLD POLL CONTEXT
How to determine which languages to cover:
Recommendations from our local partners Other secondary research: Ethnologue.com database,
African Academy of Languages, etc. World Poll data about linguistic barriers
World Poll covers more 80 African languages (phonetic rendition)
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LANGUAGE OF INTERVIEW - DEMOGRAPHICS
SENEGAL KENYA
French Wolof English Swahili
Men 60 40 68 32
Women 53 47 62 38
15-29 65 35 74 26
30-45 53 47 67 33
46 and older 42 58 46 55
Primary complete or less 42 58 44 56
Secondary or higher 91 9 87 14
Urban 75 25 92 8
Rural 48 52 59 42
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LANGUAGE OF INTERVIEW - DEMOGRAPHICSBURKINA FASO ZAMBIA
French Moore
Dioula
English
Bemba Nyanja
Tonga Lozi
Men 68 32 1 39 26 22 11 3
Women 68 31 1 34 28 24 11 4
15-29 75 24 1 40 25 17 13 4
30-45 63 37 1 32 28 29 9 2
46 and older
59 40 2 30 30 28 8 4
Primary complete or less
87 13 _ 18 36 29 13 4
Secondary or higher
91 9 _ 53 18 17 9 3
Urban 79 20 1 42 33 21 4 --
Rural 66 33 1 34 24 24 14 4
English/French is the language used most often to field the questionnaire
No gender differences
Younger respondents more likely to answer in English/French
More educated respondents are far more likely to use English/French
Source: 7 World Poll datasets from 2013
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WORLD POLL LANGUAGE OF INTERVIEW - SUMMARY
Challenges Identification of
appropriate languages Translation quality at
competitive prices Local staff capacity to
work with languages chosen for the project
Respondents’ social desirability to speak a language other than the official language
Actual respondents’ linguistic ability
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LANGUAGES AS TOOLS TO MEET CUSTOMERS’ NEEDS
Opportunities Build knowledge about
the country/region of interest
Use local partners to help ‘localize’ the research project
Develop standards/best practices against which success can be measured
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English, of course! What
about you, young man?I didn’t
know Mama could speak
English!!
What language do you feel most comfortable speaking?
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DISCUSSION