Introduction: The following is a transcript of a conversation recorded on Wednesday, January 24, 2007. I pulled in four students during our school's advisory period to hold a recorded conversation. Each of the participants are 6th graders, ages 11-12. They were briefed to hold a conversation about any topic, and they knew they were being taped. The names of the students have been changed.
Alex: Yesterday, I got into trouble. . .
Patricia: Why--
Nancy: Why?
Alex: Umm. . . .at first. . .I like. . .I was. .. I was like walkin’ to my room, right?
Nancy: uh huh. . .
Alex: . .. And my little sister. . . had. . .(Nancy: ooh at home. .) a cup of water. . .
Patricia: . . .I thought you were in school.
Nancy: yeah
Kelli: *laugh*
Alex: Naw, I got in trouble at (Kelli: walking at home?) home.
Patricia: shhh
Kelli: okay
Alex: okay. . .and like my sister had a cup of water in my room. .. and like she goes to bed early. . .cuz she's in elementary school. . .she wasted it and she blamed it on me. And my mom-
Patricia: She wasted the water and you got in trouble?
Alex: and my mom for some reason. . .doesn't like. . . wasting. . . anything
Kelli: yeah
Alex: I told her it didn't stain anything. . .and I was like. . .I don't know but I can take it back myself.
(undescernable sequence of turns)
Alex: My mom won't let me wash dishes
Patricia: Why?
Alex: Because she says I don't know how to wash them.
Patricia: I don't like washing dishes.
Nancy: yeah, it's boring--
Kelli: I get paid for washing dishes.
Patricia: An allowance?
Nancy: You do? I don't.
(undescernable sequence)
Patricia: What’s your worst nightmare?
Nancy: Uhhhhhh. . .
Kelli: You know . . .you have nightmares if you eat chocolate. . .eat chocolate before you go to bed?
Patricia: I eat chocolate before bed . . .I eat chocolate before bed. . .I eat a lot of chocolate. . .
Kelli: I mean chocolate. . .like
Patricia: like chocolate?
Kelli: like chocolate bar. ..
Patricia: oh
Alex: I remember when it. . .um. . .snowed. . .my cousin and I tired to . . .like make a fire. .
Kelli: You were outside?
Alex: We were outside. . .first I was cold. .. And then. . .my whole body was hot. . .
Patricia: yeah it was cold. . .I'm glad my mom had extra hot chocolate.. . and I was . . .I was running. . .I was running. . .I was on the road. . . .and I then I fell. . .and then I hurt my butt. . . and then it got wet. . .and cold.
Nancy: In the snow?
Patricia: No . . .in the ice.
Nancy: Oh. . .Okay
Patricia: You remember there was. . .you know those icicles that were on top of the houses. . .
Kelli: yeah. . .
Patricia: I was going like that . . .and they fell on my hand.
Kelli: yeah. . .we were um outback uh I think it was onnnnn. . .it was the day before we came back. . .we were taking umm. . .I have a soccer ball. . .out in my backyard. . .and we were taking it and we were throwing the soccer up there and hitting icicles down. (long pause)
Nancy: yeah. . .thuh. .. thuh. . .we have a cable and the ice like froze. . .
Kelli: Uh hum
Nancy: And we were coming to school my mom, me and my sister. . . and then in the car in the roof one one of them like got and like fell and got on the roof and we just jumped because we didn't know it was going to fall. . .from the cable
Alex: (undescernable utterance)
Kelli: They were there telling people watch out for ice that was flying of the top of the. . . umm. . .roofs of the cars because they were an inch thick
Alex: (undescernable utterance but he does take control of conversation)
Reflections: My initial observation was darn, my fingers sure hurt having to hit play, stop, rewind, stop, play, stop over and over again. . .transcribing is not easy! Another observation is that one should always test the recording device to determine if it is functioning properly. I used a library-issued circa 1988 recorder that may not have been used since Poison recorded their last hit album. Failing to test the recorder's range, there were several instances where Alex's utterances were undescernable which really makes transcribing frustrating (and dangerous) when you have to hold a 5 pound recorder to your ear!
In hindsight, I think that I should have found three to four friends to be the sample group because I do not think the conversation was natural. It sounds disjointed and forced. However, there were some interesting observations from the transcribing process. Writing the spoken word is time consuming, meticulous work. The complexity of the speech act is mind numbing. It is simply impossible to transcribe every detail during a conversation. So much is happening during that moment in time; it really is fascinating to analyze how naturally we speak and how utterly (pun not intended) complex and layered the act actually is. I found it especially challanging to express the inflections and the word stresses utilized by my young subjects. I also found it very difficult to transcribe overlaping utterances.
Because I teach theater, I am interested in subtext. When I transcribed this conversation, I really liked analyzing the intent of the participants more then the words they were using. I also liked to look at the pauses and other non-verbal markers. A final observation I had was I really need to have a discussion with my students about using the filler 'like' when speaking. . .ugh. . .that drives me crazy.
