This is part one of a course on basic transcription

1. TRANSCRIPTION WORKSHOP
16.03.17
Jacob Davidsen @jdavidsen(a)hum.aau.dk

3. Transcription?
“to make a written copy of…”
“to make a copy of (dictated or
recorded matter) in longhand or
on a machine (such as a
typewriter)”
“to transfer (data) from one
recording form to another”
“the act or process of making a
written, printed, or typed copy of
words that have been spoken”

4. affordances of

5. Special devices and/or ubiquitous technologies

6. Before transcription
• Recording in practice
– What is the status of your recordings?
– Do you have access to the phenomena you want
to study?
– What devices do you need?
– Editing the data
• Picture in picture
• Syncing audio and video (dual or single system)
• Anonymization (masks and filters)

7. Phases of data preperation (and
analysis)
1. Field data (field notes, documents, photos etc.)
2. Audio and/or Video recordings (focused on
actions and practices)
3. Log‐files and basic‐transcripts (for structuring and
getting an overview and also for getting back
finding things)
4. Detailed transcripts for focused analysis (also for
data sessions)
5. Transcripts for publication (conferences and
papers)

8. Ashmore and Reed (2000)
The event
The
“tape”
The
transcript
The
analysis
The
article

9. Harvey Sacks – the affordances of the
tape
I started to work with tape‐recorded conversations. Such materials had
a single virtue, that I could replay them. I could transcribe them
somewhat and study them extendedly ‐ however long it might take.
The tape‐recorded materials constituted a "good enough" record of
what happened. Other things, to be sure, happened, but at least what
was on the tape had happened. It was not from any large interest in
language or from some theoretical formulation of what should be
studied that I started with tape‐recorded conversations, but simply
because I could get my hands on it and I could study it again and
again, and also, consequentially, because others could look at what I
had studied and make of it what they could, if, for example, they
wanted to be able to disagree with me.
Sacks (1984a): 26; from a lecture given in the fall of 1967.

10. The tape
The availability of a taped record enables repeated and
detailed examination of particular events in interaction
and hence greatly enhances the range and precision of
the observations that can be made.
The use of such materials has the additional advantage of
providing hearers and, to a lesser extent, readers of
research reports with direct access to the data about
which analytic claims are being made, thereby making
them available for public scrutiny in a way that further
minimizes the influence of individual preconception.
Heritage & Atkinson (1984, p.4)

11. Pomerantz and Fehr 1997 (p. 10)
1. "certain features of the details of actions in interaction are
not recoverable in any other way"
2. "a recording makes it possible to play and replay the
interaction, which is important both for transcribing and for
developing an analysis."
3. "a recording makes it possible to check a particular analysis
against the materials, in all their detail, that were used to
produce the analysis."
4. "a recording makes it possible to return to an interaction
with new analytic interests."

12. Why video?
• “Video captures a version of an event as it happens.
• It provides opportunities to record aspects of social practices in
real‐time: talk, visible conduct, the material environment, tool use
and so forth.
• It also resists, at least in the first instance, reduction to categories
or codes and thus preserves the original record for repeated
scrutiny.
• Unlike other forms of social scientific data, there are opportunities
for ‘time‐out’, to play back in order to re‐frame, re‐focus and re‐
evaluate the analytic gaze.”
Heath, Hindmarsh and Luff, 2011, p. 5‐6

13. Why video?
“…the original video recording allows for
repeated viewing of these moments to enable
an analyst to unpack the detailed production of
the activities of the participants. In this regard
the video record allows the analyst to consider
the resources that participants bring to bear in
making sense of, and participating in, the
conduct of others, to take a particular interest in
the real‐time production of social order.”
Heath, Hindmarsh and Luff, 2011, p. 7

14. ”not only the talk of the participants, but the visible
conduct, whether gaze, gesture, facial expression, or
bodily comportment. Furthermore, video data enable
the analyst to consider how the local ecology of
objects artefacts, texts, tools and technologies feature
in and impact on the action and activity under
scrutiny”.
(Heath et al., 2011, p.7)

15. ”...video offers a means of
close documentation and
observation and present
unprecedented analytical,
collaborative, and archival
possibilities, as well as
new problems”
(Derry et al., 2010, s.5)

16. Why?
How to?
What to?
Transcription

17. Variations in the status of transcripts
• Transcripts are political
• Transcripts are not objective
• Transcribing is a selective process
• Transcripts are ”evolving flexible objects”
• Transcribing is influenced by history
• Transcribing is dependent on technology
• Transcripts are translations
• Transcripts are transformations
• Transcribing is part of a discovery process
• Transcripts are incorrect
• Transcripts are scientific objects of knowledge
• Transcribing is part of the analysis
• Transcribing is decision‐making

18. Ayass (2015)
By virtue of transcription, a piece of data, that is,
the recording of interaction, it is transformed
into a state of matter which exists thanks to the
intervention of the researcher. (4)

19. Not only does the transcript need to serve the
purpose of the study, it is also supposed to cover
the constitutive features of the analyzed data.
(6)
Ayass (2015)

20. The status of transcripts
Any transcription made of these data can serve
as a version of the data for particular analytic
purposes. However, the final arbiter of the
fidelity of the transcription is not the skill or
‘artfulness’ of the transcriber, but rather the
adequacy of the transcription compared with a
direct listening/viewing of the orginal data.
Psathas & Anderseon, 1990

21. Goodwin on transcripts
The complexity of the phenomena involved requires multiple
methods for rendering relevant distinctions (e.g., accurate
transcription of speech, gaze notation, frame grabs, diagrams, etc., see
also Ochs 1979). Moreover, like the two‐faced Roman god Janus, any
transcription system must attend simultaneously to two separate
fields, looking in one direction at how to accurately recover through a
systematic notation the endogenous structure of the events being
investigated, while simultaneously keeping another eye on the
addressee/reader of the analysis by attempting to present relevant
descriptions as clearly and vividly as possible. In many cases different
stages of analysis and presentation will require multiple transcriptions.
There is a recursive interplay between analysis and methods of
description.
Goodwin, 2001, p. 161

22. Norris on multimodal transcripts
”The task of multimodal transcripts is not to
analyze the images that are incorporated, but
rather to use the images to describe the
dynamic unfolding of specific moments in time,
in which the layout and modes like posture,
gesture, and gaze play as much part as the
verbal”
Norris , 2003, p. 65

24. Transcripts ‐Why that now?
• Freeze talk and action so you can come to the details of the
sequential organisation + simultaneous elements of
interaction
• “seen but unnoticed” (Garfinkel, 1967) elements of
interaction become visible
• Process of analysis – every version of a transcript is a part
of getting to an understanding of the interaction
• “you do not know what you find before transcribing”
(Jefferson)
• Transcripts do not stay alone, but in combination with your
video/audio‐recording
• Balance between Readability – level of detail (“order at all
points” (Sacks, 1974)

25. Heath, Hindmarsh and Luff (2010)

27. • Depending on your research question you
should develop a way of systematically
working with you data.
• Study how other researchers work with
selection and transcription in your field.
• Ask people about their transcription process
(it is often omitted in journal papers).

28. Some comments:
• Transcripts try to catch how people 'really' talk and do.
– So if the grammar is wrong, the grammar is wrong.
– You do not try to make it 'right' if they say "ik os" you do not write
"ikke også".
• Normally all words are written in lower case letters, because
capitals means that something is stressed.
• Punctuation is not included (as e.g. full‐stop, commas, question‐
mark etc. have their own meaning in fine transcripts).
• There is not one right way of doing transcripts: You have to adjust
your transcript to the data and your research question.
• Use pictures or cartoons to display important nonverbal elements.

29. ”Why put all the stuff in?
Jefferson comments on Kutler:
”I have edited conversations with an eye toward
eliminating what I believe insignificant, trivial, or
repetitious…and often have omitted dutiful
choruses of agreement by those present unless I
believed them particularly important”
”because it is there”

30. Transcribing Interviews
When transcribing interviews, the following
questions arise: (1) should all the questions of the
interviewer or only the main questions from the
interview guide be transcribed; (2) should the
verbalizations be transcribed literally or only in a
summary; and (3) should observations during the
interview (e.g., sounds, pauses, and other audible
behaviors) be transcribed or not (Schilling, 2006)?
(Zhang & Wildemuth, 2009)

31. Jordan & Henderson – Interaction
Analysis
One basic underlying assumption in Interaction Analysis is
that knowledge and action are fundamentally social in
origin, organization, and use, knowledge and practice are
seen not so much located in the heads of individuals but
as situated in the interactions among members of a
particular community engaged with the material world
(p. 41)
…Video records are also useful for eliciting detailed
information from participants themselves. Such data
represent the participants’ perspective, their view of the
world, which may contrast substantially with the
analyst’s. (49)

32. Points of attention (Jordan and
Henderson)
• The structure of events
 Beginnings and endings
 Segmentation
• The Temporal organization of Activity
 Macro level
 Rhythm and periodicity
• Turntaking
• Participation structures
• Trouble and repair
• The spatial organisation of the activity
• Artifacts and documents

34. Different systems and technologies
• Systems
– Jeffersonian annotation system
– Homemade
• Technologies
– Pen and paper
– Word
– Software
• ELAN
• Transana
• CLAN
• + many more

35. Goodwin (1993)

36. Heath, Hindmarsh and Luff (2010)

37. Layout:
Font: courier new, 10 points
Line number (must) ‐ Time (optional) ‐ Nametag (must)
1 00:00:00 A Hello
2 00:00:00 B hello A
Pauses
(.) Just noticeable pause
(.3), (2.6) Examples of timed pauses
Overlap
A: word [word
B: [word Square brackets aligned across adjacent lines denote the start of
overlapping talk. Some transcribers also use "]" brackets to show where the overlap
stops
Some basic rules

38. Verbal and nonverbal elements (part 1)
((sniff)) Transcriber's effort at representing
something hard, or impossible, to write phonetically
wo(h)rd (h) is a try at showing that the word has
"laughter" bubbling within it
wor- A dash shows a sharp cut-off
wo:rd Colons show that the speaker has stretched the
preceding sound.
(words) A guess at what might have been said if
unclear
( ) Unclear talk. Some transcribers like to
represent each syllable of unclear talk with a dash

39. Verbal and nonverbal elements (part 2)
A: word=
B: =word The equals sign shows that there is no
discernible pause between two speakers' turns or, if put
between two sounds within a single speaker's turn, shows
that they run together
word,
WORD Underlined sounds are louder, capitals louder still
↑word,↓word Onset of noticeable pitch rise or fall (can be
difficult to use reliably)
ºwordº material between "degree signs" is quiet
>word word<
<word word> Inwards arrows show faster speech, outward
slower
.hh, hh in-breath (note the preceding fullstop) and
out-breath respectively.

40. Types of transcripts
Playscripts (basic transscripts)
Jeffersonian transcripts
Multimodal transcripts
– Comics
– Chronotopic
– Framegrabs

41. Transcription #1
41

42. Transcription #2
42

43. Transcription #3
43

44. Transcription #4
44