English Language Teaching in its Social Context

RECORDING AND TRANSCRIBING TALK 333G1G2B1-B2Notes1234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829What are we goingto do at home (.)any ideasWe can use (?)[..'IFrom ( mother )Maybe I can getsome materialsfor thisYesfrom my mother(.) from thetravel agencyYes (.) I take- this (.) I takethis yes yesI take it mmh andI see and I seeif there'ssomething I canuse (.)We can use( 1So what (would)we do ( ) readit at home (.)the questionnaire(.) read it athomefrom where (?)addresbes groupdirect1 yrefers to bookwhich he holdsUPquestiontowards girls?As in Figure 20.3 with, in addition:(?) Guess at speakerFigure 20.4 Transcription of small group talk: column layoutlayout). I would be interested in looking further at this group's work to see if Girl 1maintained this role or if it was also taken on by other students.The way transcription is laid out may highlight certain features of the talk, for instance:The standard layout suggests a connected sequence, in which one turn follows onfrom the preceding one.This does seem to happen in the extract transcribed in Figures20.3 and 20.4 but it is not always the case. In young children's speech, for instance,speaking turns may not follow on directly from a preceding turn. I shall also give anexample of more informal talk below in which it is harder to distinguish a series ofscquential turns.Column transcripts allow you to track one speaker's contributions: you can look atthe number and typcs of contribution madc by a speaker (e.g. Girl 1's 'organising'contributions), or track the topics they focus on - or whatever else is of interest.