Thematic Analysis with Large Language Models: does it work with languages other than English? A targeted test in Italian

Understand

This paper proposes a test to perform Thematic Analysis (TA) with Large Language Model (LLM) on data which is in a different language than English.

• While there has been initial promising work on using pre-trained LLMs for TA on data in English, we lack any tests on whether these models can reasonably perform the same analysis with good quality in other language.
• In this paper a test will be proposed using an open access dataset of semi-structured interviews in Italian.
• The test shows that a pre-trained model can perform such a TA on the data, also using prompts in Italian.