Abstract

The interpretation of life story is viewed as a process of inferencing the identity of a person via constructing the thematic structure of life story. From this viewpoint the analysis of interpretation protocols focused on the following aspects: (1) relationship between interpreters' theoretical perspectives of person understanding and interpretative constructs used for inferencing the identity; (2) macrostrategy used for theme construction while reading a life story; (3) interpretation patterns in terms of multiplicity of constructed themes and (4) their consensual validation on the basis of storywriter's(= main character of life story) response; (5) the horizons of understanding to be uncovered in the frustrated response of interpreters to the ambiguous life story. In conclusion, the researchers' horizon of understanding inherent in the interpretation on the empirical data is reflected and the contributions and the limits of this study to person understanding are discussed.