{"id":85,"date":"2010-06-24T16:23:14","date_gmt":"2010-06-24T23:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tabithahart.net\/?p=85"},"modified":"2010-12-01T13:38:36","modified_gmt":"2010-12-01T20:38:36","slug":"transcribing-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tabithahart.net\/?p=85","title":{"rendered":"Transcribing talk"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you collect audio or video data for research purposes, then you\u2019ve certainly had to deal with questions of transcription:\u00a0 how much of the data to transcribe, what transcription convention (if any) to follow, how to present transcribed data to the reader, etc.\u00a0 Philosophically speaking, the act of transcribing talk is much weightier than one might imagine, since it involves interpretation of the data, for researcher and reader alike.\u00a0 When I was preparing for my general exams, my advisor<\/a> assigned me to read:<\/p>\n

Lapadat, J. C., & Lindsay, A. C. (1999). Transcription in research and practice: From standardization of technique to interpretive positionings. <\/a>Qualitative Inquiry, 5<\/a><\/em>(1), 64-86.<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an article that I highly recommend, since it offers keen insight, as well as guiding questions, on transcribing talk.\u00a0 The key point that Lapadat and Lindsey raise is that although many (most?) research articles don\u2019t typically include much detail on transcription choices and procedures, they should, since “each researcher makes choices about whether to transcribe, what to transcribe, and how to represent the record in text.” (p. 66)\u00a0 These choices are not obvious, and they impact the interpretation of the data.<\/p>\n

Some of the transcription choices listed by Lapadat and Lindsey are:<\/p>\n