English Language Teaching in its Social Context

RECORDING AND TRANSCRIBING TALI< 33Teacher:Mathew:Teacher:Mathew:Teacher:Boy:Teacher:Boy:Boy:-If you have a pendulum (.) which we established last week was a weight a mass (.) suspendedfrom a string or whatever....................... ----------I-------------- --------------- ---------------(.) and watch I’m holding it with my hand so it’s at rest at the moment (.) what is it thatI (.)just watchit1 gravity11111-111-----What is it Mathew? [2]-----Gravityc-:)IYes (.) now we mentioned gravity when we were............................... -------------------actually doing the experiments but we didn’t discuss it too much (.) OK so it’s gravity then that---11111111------------pulls it down (.) what causes it to go up again at the other side? [3]---------I-Force the forceThe string Missmakes the pendulum swing in a downward direction for instance till it gets to there? [ 1 I?-----{ } overlap(.)pause( )unclearmeans gaze to boysmeans gaze to girlsFigure 20.7 Representation of teacher’s gaze towards female and male studentsSource: Swann and Graddol (1 989/ 1994): 157-9Note: The full transcript from which Figure 20.7 is extracted shows that the teacher’s gaze is morefrequently directed towards the boys at critical points in the interaction, such as when a question isto be answered.England Australia New Zealand andArgentina are the best producers ofwool dawk 1-aktar h gfiandhom farms11 Irobbu n-nagfiag gfios-sUfO.K. Englandtgfiiduli minn Iicma post Englandgfiondhom Scotland magfiruFntant gfia11-wool u gersipcttagfihom O.K.they have the largest number of farms andthe largest number of sheep for wool O.K.England where in England we really meanScotland they are very well-known fortheir woollen productsFigure 20.8 Transcript illustrating alternation between English and MalteseSource: Camilleri (1994) cited in Mercer (1996): 134, and Chapter 15 of this volumenonstandard grammar (‘it were great’) but did not attempt to represent the girls’ accent.Some transcribers resort to ‘eye dialect’ (as in we wuzjus’goin”orne) to give an indication ofpronunciation but there is a danger here of representing certain speakers (working classspeakers, children, non-native speakers) as somehow deviant or incompetent.