Transcription

1. Transcription Stephen Gibson York St John University HEA Psychology Network TQRMUL workshop, York, April 2008

2. Session outline Introduction to transcription Different types of transcript appropriate for different analytic approaches Teaching transcription Student activities Practical issues A transcript is not an objective record of some bit of reality Drawing together points 1-3 above

3. Transcription Transcription is theory (cf. Ochs, 1979) Different transcription conventions are appropriate for different analytic perspectives Transcription always takes longer than you think!

4. Questions from students Do I have to transcribe everything? How much detail do I need to include? I say �um� and �er� a lot � do these matter? Do I have to transcribe my interview questions as well as the interviewee�s answers? I didn�t ask the questions in exactly the way I�ve written them on the interview schedule, which version should I use for the transcript? I know what they meant to say here, but they�ve not said it � should I tidy it up? How do I transcribe body language, gesture etc?

5. Answers�? For many of these questions, the answers depend on what you�re doing with the transcript General advice to students � have a look at studies using your chosen method of analysis and see what they do

6. Transcription in the 4 approaches covered in the workshop � a (very) general comparison Interpretative (IPA & GT) Focus on content & meaning Easily readable to the uninitiated (similar to �play script�) Orthographic representation Standard spelling & punctuation Limited transcription of paralinguistic (e.g. intonation, elongation) & extralinguistic (e.g. gesture, body language) features Discursive (CA & DA/DP) Focus on active language use Difficult to read at first More likely to use some form of non-orthographic representation (typically Jeffersonian) Lots of paralinguistic detail Limited extralinguistic features (see Charles Antaki�s CA web tutorial)

7. Teaching transcription Little substitute for experience Students typically underestimate the amount of time needed Smith & Osborn (2003) � 5-8 hours transcription time per hour of audio material (IPA) CA � 1:20 ratio General guidelines for minimum amount of audio data for undergraduate dissertations IPA & GT � 5 hours DA � 3-4 hours CA (& CA-influenced DA) � 1-2 hours Gough, B., Lawton, R., Madill, A., & Stratton, P. (2003). Guidelines for the supervision of undergraduate qualitative research in psychology. York: LTSN Psychology. http://www.psychology.heacademy.ac.uk/docs/pdf/p20030626_ltsn_report_3_text.pdf

8. Exercises with published data Introducing the importance of careful transcription Comparison of two versions of the same transcript from published papers Ready-made example (e.g. McCrone et al 1998 vs Bechhofer et al 1999)

9. Exercises with published data Introducing the importance of careful transcription Comparison of two versions of the same transcript from published papers Ready-made example (e.g. McCrone et al 1998 vs Bechhofer et al 1999) Online materials (see URLs on handout) Particularly useful for Jeffersonian transcription Papers including different transcripts of the same recording (see refs on handout)

10. Exercises with primary data (1) Students transcribe the same piece of (short) audio/video material using different conventions Demonstrates differences btwn 2 transcripts based on the same audio Also the different length of time it takes to complete them

11. Exercises with primary data (2) Two students transcribe the same bit of audio/video using the same transcription conventions Likely to produce variations btwn transcripts � esp. if material selected carefully Useful for highlighting the role of the transcriber in producing the transcript (i.e. the transcript is not an objective record of some bit of reality)

12. Exercises with primary data (3) Students record short stretches of conversation/interview etc & transcribe it Then swap recording with someone else & transcribe Compare transcripts Highlights the role of �insider� knowledge (both pos & neg) in producing a transcript Transcribing interactions you have been involved in vs ones you haven�t

13. Practical issues Digital recording � better quality than tape � easier to transcribe (many students have phones/cameras that allow the recording of digital audio & video files) Regular breaks Transcription machines Cost implications (c. �70 for a digital transcription machine)

14. Bird, C. M. (2005). How I stopped dreading and learned to love transcription. Qualitative Inquiry, 11 (2), 226-248 �To transcribe my first cassette tape, I used a tabletop-sized, dual speaker, single-cassette player with a pause button but no counter. Not until later in the story of my transcription experience did I learn what a transcription machine was and how to use it. Thus, in the beginning, expending well more than 40 hours to transcribe a 1-hour tape did much to build my dread of transcription. After I had complained to my fellow researchers, one of them finally told me about transcription machines, how they worked, and where I could borrow one.� (p. 233)

15. Ethical issues for students using transcripts Anonymity Not only of the speaker, but of people, places, institutions that are referred to. Removal of info which may potentially identify them Uses of the transcript Participant approval of transcript? Who will see the transcript? Will it be archived?

16. A transcript is not an objective record of some bit of reality �transcription is theory laden; the choices that researchers make about transcription enact the theories they hold and constrain the interpretations they can draw from their data� Lapadat, J. C. & Lindsay, A. C. (1999). Transcription in research and practice: From standardization of technique to interpretive positionings. Qualitative Inquiry, 5 (1), 64-86.

17. A transcript is not an objective record of some bit of reality Modaff & Modaff (2000) Extract of telephone conversation recorded by two separate recording devices (one on each handset) Leads to differences in what is hearable Differences in transcript

18. A transcript is not an objective record of some bit of reality Modaff & Modaff (2000) Extract of telephone conversation recorded by two separate recording devices (one on each handset) Leads to differences in what is hearable Differences in transcript Can get students to record same bit of interaction with different recording devices (can vary location and/or type of device [e.g. tape vs digital]) Variation in transcripts useful for highlighting contingent nature of event-recording-transcript relationship