While the “interpretive turn” in the social sciences was fulfilled more than a quarter of a century ago, only gradually have those procedures begun to emerge within this paradigm whose impact unfolds against this backdrop, but that can, through a series of specific assumptions, lay claim to an autonomous status. In the German-speaking world, these include most notably the procedures of sociolinguistic process analysis elaborated by two members of the study group: narrative interview and narration-structural evaluation methods sensu Fritz Schütze, and the objective hermeneutics evaluation method developed by Ulrich Oevermann. For the first time, these two approaches are to undergo in the study group – which includes the two main proponents – a direct comparison that not only takes place on a theoretical or methodical level, but is carried out empirically and substantially on different materials (protocols). Ultimately, on the one hand, comparisons with other procedures within the spectrum of both interpretive and reconstructive approaches are to be carried out; on the other hand, the application and practice conditions of the two procedures in further academic disciplines (psychology, ethnology, social work, etc.) will be reviewed.
