We review discourses about the philosophy of science in qualitative research and evidence from cognitive linguistics in order to ground a framework for discussing the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) to support the qualitative analysis process. This framework involves asking two key questions: "is the LLM proposing or refuting a qualitative model?" and "is the human researcher checking the LLM's decision-making directly?". We then discuss an implication of this framework: that using LLMs to surface counter-examples for human review represents a promising space for the adoption of LLMs into the qualitative research process. This space is promising because it is a site of overlap between researchers working from a variety of philosophical assumptions, enabling productive cross-paradigm collaboration on tools and practices.

翻译：本文通过回顾定性研究中科学哲学的论述以及认知语言学的证据，为讨论使用大型语言模型（LLMs）支持定性分析过程构建了一个理论框架。该框架涉及两个关键问题：“LLM是在提出还是反驳定性模型？”以及“人类研究者是否直接核查LLM的决策过程？”。随后我们探讨了该框架的一个核心启示：利用LLMs发掘反例供人工审阅，代表了将LLMs引入定性研究流程中极具前景的方向。这一方向之所以前景广阔，是因为它构成了不同哲学立场研究者的交汇点，能够促进跨范式在工具与实践层面的建设性合作。