LIN1024
Hands-on Language
!
Session 1 – Introduction to the unit and
orthographic transcription guidelines
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Practical matters!
First things first: WELCOME!
This study-unit will be taught by a number of us.
So, for information on particular lectures, feel free to
contact the relevant lecturer, but for general (and logistic)
information I am your contact person, as coordinator of
the unit.
My e-mail is [email protected]
and I am based in office no. 21 at the IoL portacabins.
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Announcements!
•  Apart from a few sessions in this study-unit, we will
also be doing LIN1080 (Meaning) together (as well as
the half first of LIN1032).
Note that lectures for this unit will start on the 23rd of
October (8-10am, room LC216).
•  BA Linguistics students ONLY: There is an error in
the study-unit list given to you by the Faculty of Arts.
What is listed as LIN1190 should be LIN1090. So, your
first lecture for this is on Wednesday 8th October
(8-9am, room LC119).
•  Those of you registered for a BSc/BA in Language
Technology have your first LIN1190 lecture on Friday.
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What this study-unit is about!
Linguistics is the scientific study of language.
What does that mean exactly?
“The main aim of the option in Linguistics is to provide
students with an understanding of the way language
works, as well as a coherent framework of concepts and
terminology for describing it.”
So, where do all these concepts come from?
“We are all native speakers of at least one language. By
the same token, we are all “language experts”, in the
sense that we are in a possession of a great deal of
knowledge about what is and is not linguistically
permissible in our native tongue...
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What this study-unit is about!
...even if we do not know that we know!”
One famous example by Chomsky:
-  * Furiously sleep ideas green colorless.
(ungrammatical sentences are marked with an asterisk)
-  Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
But let’s not complicate things just yet...
Let’s start by talking about the common chat you usually
have with friends...
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Conversation Analysis!
How organised do you think regular chat is?
“There is no beginning; there is a lack of official stages;
the turn taking is disrupted and fairly random; the
speakers don’t seem to link up; one of the speakers is
excluded and consciously ignored by the others
…” (Stubbs,1983:20)
But is that right?
According to CA, conversational interaction is not random,
but exhibits intricate levels of organisation that can be
examined by the analyst.
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Conversation Analysis!
In this picture, talk is understood by participants in terms
of its members’ real time analyses of what they are saying
to each other turn-by-turn, moment-by-moment.
In other words, meaning is embedded in the sequential
structure of conversation.
Consider:
A: You want anything?
B: Tea?
A: Sure.
Here, a question functions as a question in A’s first turn to
the extent that it is so treated by the interlocutor (B)...
...who demonstrates this analysis when she produces a
second turn with a question that functions as an answer,...
...and which A then observably treats as a relevant
answer in the third turn.
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Interactional organisation!
Without going into that much detail (until next week at
least), we can just say that conversation can be shown to
unravel in predictable ways:
- During conversation, turns are not pre-allocated, but
locally managed.
-There is little overlap in talk, and when there is, overlaps
are swiftly resolved.
- In many cases, utterances of a conversation follow
particular patterns which are typed (i.e. a particular first
part requires a particular second - or range of seconds)
e.g. Offers --> acceptance/rejection
Greetings --> greetings
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Orthographic transcription!
What is important for today’s lecture, is the orthographic
transcription system that CA uses, and which is
customarily used in many types of qualitative analysis
studies.
For the purposes of CA, the recordings used should catch
‘natural interaction’ as fully and faithfully as is practically
possible.
Here ‘natural’ is meant to contrast with the norm in
behavioural linguistic research (i.e. task-based
recordings).
Ideally, the observer should be absent at the time of
recording.
Otherwise, s/he shouldn’t interfere at all.
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Orthographic transcription!
Then, the analyst usually ‘samples’ recordings
according to his/her project’s needs.
Most importantly, the researcher should NOT follow his/
her own intuitions regarding appropriateness of
expression, grammaticality, etc.
S/he just needs to transcribe what s/he hears before s/he
turns to analyse his/her data.
Clearly, when transcribing the data, consistency is a
requirement.
This helps with the analysis and further evaluation.
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Orthographic transcription!
Here are some widely-accepted guidelines that will also
apply to your work as orthographic transcribers:
- State the time, date and place of the original recording.
- Anonymity is important: Assign labels to participants
(usually a letter would do here).
- Use correct orthography unless when clearly noticing a
sound deviation.
- Apart from linguistic items per se, keep track of other
sounds too.
- Organise the transcript to match the timing of the
interaction.
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Orthographic transcription!
While providing your orthographic transcription, you’ll be
using the following CA conventions:
Mark overlaps using [ ]
e.g.
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/schegloff/
TranscriptionProject/temporal1wholesound1.html
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Orthographic transcription!
= =
If the lines connected by two equal signs are by different
speakers, then the second followed the first with no
discernable silence between them.
e.g.
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/schegloff/
TranscriptionProject/temporal3wholesound1.html
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Orthographic transcription!
= =
If the two lines connected by the equal signs are by the
same speaker, then there was a single, continuous
utterance with no break or pause, which was broken up
in order to accommodate the placement of overlapping
talk.
e.g.
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/schegloff/
TranscriptionProject/temporal4wholesound1.html
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Orthographic transcription!
(number.number)
Numbers in parentheses indicate silence, represented in
tenths of a second.
For now, you can mark discernible silences longer than
half a second as (0.5). For “micropauses" use (.)
Silences may be marked either within an utterance or
between utterances.
e.g.
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/schegloff/
TranscriptionProject/temporal6wholesound1.html
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Orthographic transcription!
NB: In orthographic transcription, punctuation marks are NOT used
grammatically, but to indicate intonation.
.
The period indicates a falling, or final, intonation contour,
NOT necessarily the end of a sentence.
e.g.
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/schegloff/
TranscriptionProject/aspects1wholesound1.html
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Orthographic transcription!
NB: In orthographic transcription, punctuation marks are NOT used
grammatically, but to indicate intonation.
?
A question mark indicates rising intonation, NOT
necessarily a question.
e.g.
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/schegloff/
TranscriptionProject/aspects1wholesound2.html
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Orthographic transcription!
A hyphen after a word or part of a word indicates a cutoff or self-interruption.
e.g.
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/schegloff/
TranscriptionProject/aspects4wholesound1.html
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Orthographic transcription!
::
Colons are used to indicate the prolongation or stretching
of the sound just preceding them. The more colors, the
longer the stretching.
e.g.
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/schegloff/
TranscriptionProject/aspects3wholesound1.html
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Orthographic transcription!
CAPS
Capitalized text indicates increased volume in speech
(e.g. shouting).
e.g.
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/schegloff/
TranscriptionProject/aspects5wholesound2.html
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Orthographic transcription!
°
The degree sign (e.g. °xxxxxx xxxx xxxxxx xxx xxxxx°)
indicates that the talk that follows is markedly softer than
the talk before it.
e.g.
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/schegloff/
TranscriptionProject/aspects6wholesound1.html
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Orthographic transcription!
< > ><
The combination of "more than" and "less than" symbols
(i.e. >xxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxx<) indicates that
the talk between them is compressed or rushed. Used in
the reverse order (i.e. <xxxxxxxx xxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxx>),
they indicate that a stretch of talk is markedly slow or
drawn out.
e.g.
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/schegloff/
TranscriptionProject/aspects9wholesound1.html
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Orthographic transcription!
(( ))
Double parentheses are used to mark events unrelated
to talk, such as ((cough)), ((sniff)), ((telephone rings)),
((footsteps)), etc.
e.g.
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/schegloff/
TranscriptionProject/other1wholesound1.html
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Orthographic transcription!
( )
Finally, if you can’t make out what’s being said, you can
include a parenthesis (with an optional guess) to indicate
it.
e.g.
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/schegloff/
TranscriptionProject/other2wholesound1.html
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Orthographic transcription!
And now let’s practise...
Can you identify any of the previous conversation features
in the audio extracts provided?
http://www.um.edu.mt/linguistics/currentstudents/
iol_study_units
Homework:
Pick one of the two and try to transcribe it fully (you may
need to use headphones for it)
Resources (for more information):
Emanuel Schegloff’s transcription module:
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/schegloff/
TranscriptionProject/index.html
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