Child Development 131 (3):

Language and Learning

Spring 2002

Dr. Weissman

 

project 1

general guidelines for language sample

and transcription

  

 

Preliminaries – Obtaining your language sample

Select a child, aged 3-11 years, to participate in your study. (English should be the child’s first language.) Have the parents sign a permission letter (provided by the instructor) to indicate their informed consent for the child’s participation.  Obtain a recorded language sample from the child (audio or video) of at least 30 minutes duration. Ideally, we would learn a lot from a naturalist language sample, however, I suggest that you motivate the child to talk by using questions, pictures, games, etc. (conversation topics/guidelines)

 

Biographic information about the child:

Be sure to obtain some biographic information about the child in your study. You may want to get this information from the parent before the language sample is collected. Any information that might provide information about the child’s language development would be relevant [e.g., age, sex, language background (dialectical, bilingual, etc), family structure, educational background (type of school attended, how long), and the relationship between the student researcher and the child (if any)].

Keep notes about the procedure used in collecting your transcript: Describe the circumstances in which the language sample was obtained, including the physical setting and the other people present, etc. And, comment on anything unusual about the setting or experience that might have an impact on child’s use of language.

 

Tape Transcription

Transcribe about 12 minutes of the child language collected in your taping. Your transcript must be a complete verbatim account of everything that is said by all participants in the taped conversation.  It is thus better if only one person (you) is in conversation with the target child -- otherwise it can be very complicated to make sense of what is said by whom when there are several people involved in a conversation. Verbatim means typing the target child’s statements (and those of anyone else who participates in the conversation) exactly as they are said; so, if participants use incorrect pronunciation or grammar, you need to show this in your typed transcript. This is important because your analysis of the child’s language will be based on such things as grammatical constructions, errors made, etc. 

 

General Transcription Guidelines:

·        Every statement in the transcript needs to be on a separate line and each line should be numbered consecutively from (1) to (n) so that you can refer to specific lines of the transcript when writing your paper.

·        Give each of the participants an identifier (it is best to avoid real names – I suggest using the  code “TC” to stand for target child) and type each of their statements on a new line preceded by their identifying code and a colon.

·        Transcribe all verbal comments phonetically  (i.e., as they are said, including emphasis, without correcting for grammatical construction, etc)

·        You should also type in any actions that accompany the spoken words and put these in parentheses to show they are not part of the speech transcription (you do not need to describe everything participants do, only those things which you think have a bearing on their conversation).

·        Periodically make note of elapsed time using a counter or clock/watch.

 

Specific Transcription Guidelines:

1)     Be sure to label each utterance with both the speaker symbol (e.g., TC) and an utterance number.

2)     An utterance is one phrase or sentence. An utterance may be complete or incomplete.

3)     Start each new utterance on a new line, even if the speaker is the same.

4)     Use punctuation. Incomplete utterances should end with they symbol > (i.e., do not use a period)

5)     If the speaker pauses during the utterance, indicate so by writing “(pause),” at the point in the utterance where the pause occurred. Do not use “…” And, do not use a new line to indicate a pause.

6)     If the speaker’s utterance in unintelligible (you cannot hear it or understand it), indicate that by writing XX on the line.

7)     If two people are speaking at the same time (i.e., the utterances overlap) indicate that in the transcript using a < >.

                * In the place that the overlapped speech occurred, use the symbol < >

                * After you finish transcribing that utterance, on the next line, transcribe the utterance that occurred at the same time and enclose it in <  >

 

 

Example:

001      (1)            E:            How about the next page?

(2)            TC:            His Frog’s sad.

(3)            E:            Mhm.

(4)            TC:            They’re mad (pause) at him.

005      (5)            E:            And the next page.

(6)            TC:            They want him to go to XX room.

(7)            E:            Mhm.

(8)            TC:            They’re waiting for >.

(9)            E:            How does <the story end>?

009      (10)            TC:            <He’s having> fun.

010      (11)            E:            Ok.

 

Due Dates:

1)         You should aim to collect your language sample during the 3rd week of class.

2)         A sample of your transcript should be brought to class on February 26th.

3)         A copy of your complete transcript is due on Tuesday, March 5th.

 

 

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