Transcription Assignment (2 pages)
You will be video and/or audio-recording the communicative event and the interview. Afterwards, you will choose a portion of the event or the interview that you would like to transcribe (using transcription conventions ). For this assignment you will turn in 1 page of transcript and 1 page of preliminary analysis of the patterns you have observed (linguistic practices, specialized lexicon, language ideologies, authority/hierarchy/power, knowledge distribution, etc.).-I upload the file
transcription conventions
This transcription notation systtem is an adaptation of Gail Jefferon’s work(see Atkinson&Heritage(Eds.), 1984, pp.ix-xvi)
. The priod indicate a falling, or final, intonation contour, not necessarily the end of a sentence.
? a question mark indicates rising intonation, not necessarily a question.
, The comma indicates ‘continuing’ intonation, not necessarily a clause boundary.
] Brackets indicate onset of overlap in talk.

]

::: colons indicate stretching of the preceding sound proportional to the number of colons.
_ A hyphen after a word or part o a word indicate a cult-off or self-interruption.
word____ underlining indicates some form of stress or emphasis on the underlined item.
hhh/.hhh H’s indicate audible outbreaths, possibly laughter.. The more h’s, the longer the aspiration. Aspirations with periods, possibly indicate audible inbreaths (e.g., .hhh). H’s within parentheses( e.g., ye(hh)s) mark withinn-speech aspiration, possibly laughter.
WOrd upper case indicate loudness.
OO the degree signs indicate segments of talk that are markedly quiet or soft.
>
in the revers order they indicate that a stretch of talk is markedly slower
= An equals sign indicate no break or delay between the words thereby connected.
(.) A period in parentheses indicate a brief pause..
(1.2) numbers in parentheses indicate silence in tenths of a second.
(word) when all or part of an utterance is in parentheses, this indicates uncertainty on the transcriber’s part.
((action)) Double parentheses enclose descriptions of conduct.
some general Hints or (CA) transcription
1. listen to the first 15 seconds of the recording several times until you get a sense of what’s going on an how many participants are talking. you should do this at least 5 times-10times is better-before doing any transcription.
2. First pass: Basic Sketch
Take the firt 5 seconds and listen to it 4 or 5 additional times before writing anytime.
-1 sketch out the turn-taking organization: who talks first? who second? who third and so on.
-begin by writing down the words of each speaker’s turn./ Don’t worry about too much detail. you can put that in as you hear it later. I find it easier to refine detail once all the words are already written down.

-Do you notice any pauses between the turns? Are there pauses within the turns? If som, mark them.
one Method or timing pauses:(subjective timing method)
o one thousand, one one thousand, etc
[ ] [no ] [one] [th ]ou[s ] and [ ], [ one ] one [th ]ou[s ]and [ ] [(.)] [(0.2)] [(0.5)] [(0.8)] [(1.0)], [(1.2)] [(1.5)] [(1.8)] [(2.0)]
3. Second pass: refining and Adding detail
Take the same 5 seconds or so and begin listening to it again for more detail. here is a basic list of important details
inbreaths, overlap, latching, vocalized, pauses, sound stretches, emphasis or ‘punched’ words or sounds, turn-final intonation(comma, period, question mark),
after having listened to it 10 or so time, you’ll begin to get a sense of the detail.
it’ likely to hear enough detail you’ll need to listen to the same 5 seconds at lest 15-20 times hen you first start doing transcription. the payoff is this: the more time you spend transcribing, the more detail you’ll have to develop your analysis.
SILENCES:
PAUSE: …(0.3) … :within one turn -> my silence
GAP:
(0.7): end of TCU (possibly complete) -> anybody’s silence
Example of transcript
“Eighty Years Ago”-transcript
Feiveel (“expert”), David (“expert), Lindsay (participant), Adam Organization fouunder), Michelle (participant),, Hillary (participant), Jacob (participant), Murray (obserrver)
01 FEI: Now we’ve been talking about ((moves right hand in circe close to D)) 02 (1.5) Yiddish culture as a ((puts hands together into a circle)) single whole. 03 (2.2) Eighty years ago (0.2) I don’t know why I’m fixated on eighty these 04 days huh Eighty years ago [uh :
if you need my filed note, here is my filed note
Dream Team LA
August 20, 2012
7:08 pm
Ethnographic Field Notes of a Communicative Event
At first they did a few icebreaker activities while they introduced each other. One of the icebreakers was simple to announce their names and their school, and then further their own individual distinctions with a description of their favorite desserts favorite desserts such as traditional fare like flan and arroz con leche as well as the all-American types of ice cream, apple pie, snowy ice, and crepes. The icebreakers work because they enjoy laughing and asking each other about different restaurants while they share why they chose their dessert and provide some
personal stories to go along with their reasons.
The icebreakers impact everyone as it appears that they are comfortable with making jokes, and they introduce why they are here and people agree that it is a good cause. Sometimes an individual pronounces their names in the Spanish way, and other times an individual will say it in an Americanized way. Jaime introduces himself and as he takes on a position of some authority, he explains that they need to talk about the priorities while they focus on the event they are having on August 25th for ?Deferred Action.?
All the while this sense of organization is taking place, the current speaker/leader comes in an explains, ?There?s some confusion about the rooms.? He speaks in English but code switches to Spanish when he starts to talk about the pre-screening sessions at the Legal Clinic. He clarifies, ?The training taking place here is part of the last meeting in the other room.? As he gestures with his hands about walk-ins, he looks over at the camera and steps forward while continuing to make hand gestures. A real sense of authority takes place when current speaker/leader looks down at the people sitting while using hand gestures to count down all the things they offer.
Out of the blue, a woman asks a question about vocabulary, and current speaker/leader answers in a way everyone can understand. He goes through the whole process of the service they are providing. While he is providing the information, he makes the joke: ?I am having an immigrant moment here!? The crowd bursts into laughter.
Then the current leader and speaker calls on Will who is asking a question. While Will is asking a question, someone cuts in front of the current speaker/leader and blocks the view of others, but the current speaker does not mind. The current speaker/leader just simply makes the joke: ?Be ready and prepared for a long day! Eat some good bean!? Then Eric, using hand gestures asks questions, and then others start chiming in with more questions. There is one girl who interrupts the discussion as other people are openly asking the current speaker/leader. In a shift of momentum, the current speaker/leader directs the conversation to a new
speaker to talk about a different topic.
In the room, there is a main conference table and chairs surrounding as well as posters around the room and chairs along the wall. There are a variety of posters: one poster has a quote, another poster is an event poster, a blank poster illustrates the different people that have added to throughout the meeting?it?s a new poster was just created for the meeting.
Eventually we, the observers, broke out into a thought-provoking discussion about our project. The project demanded that we turn our attention to filling out our paperwork and asking each other questions. Establishing that we would all be facilitators came in a somewhat natural flow though there were some tendencies of two people in the group as some kind of leaders, which demonstrated the kind of communication in the group, one was standing and the other two were sitting. As facilitators, a rotation was established, as each individual became a point person.
Preliminary Analysis of Communicative Patterns During the Event
Even though there was no seating plan per se, the relative status of the participants was established when the current leader/speaker began to communicate with the others and the participants turned their attention towards him (Duranti, 2008). A socialization that was culturally driven by the Spanish speakers had taught them that any hierarchy is established and adapted with such contingencies fits the task of being directed toward the needed services. The culturally-driven Spanish contingencies were first established when the current leader/speaker first spoke in English but code switched to Spanish when he started to talk about the pre-screening sessions at the Legal Clinic. The culturally-driven Spanish contingencies were predetermined and fixed. Plus, the current leader/speaker?s distribution of knowledge about how to act in this given situation of the ?Legal Clinic? was functional to the distribution of power within the group. In a certain sense, the leader/speaker controlled the group.
The culturally-driven format was even established from the very beginning when the group was sharing their names and schools, but more specifically, the types of desserts that they liked. We easily noticed the traditional Spanish desserts of flan and arroz con leche that furthered the homogeneous verbal markers of the group?a shared social distinction establishing syntax (with the joking) and lexicon of the easily identified desserts that bridged any differences of divergent local dialects (Duranti, 2008). In a multilingual setting such as the ?Legal Clinic? in America, the choice of Spanish over English was established and the choice of one language over the other had the same signification as the selection among lexical alternates in a linguistically homogeneous societies. In this case, only one language, Spanish, was required to cover the entire scope of the event and was a linguistically acceptable expression that served to convey all social meanings. Regardless of any local linguistic differences in their Spanish dialects, a sense of community was established as well as a speech community forming because all the participants shared a common cause and a social set of norms.