The module has several aims. One is to help you cultivate a working familiarity with the transcription conventions which are used in Conversation Analysis and other disciplines. Because much of the data in lectures and readings is made up of the transcripts of ordinary conversations it is important that you learn to recognize what a transcript shows actually happened in a conversation, and how. One very effective way of acquiring a working knowledge of this set of symbols is by using them — first in reading some transcript, and then in producing some.
This is also an effective way of beginning to hear in detail what actually makes up the flow of talk in interactions, and this is another aim of the exercise. There is no better way to become alert to the actual “events” of which interaction is composed than by listening under the mandate of producing a detailed and accurate rendition of what the participants actually said and did, using some set of symbols for representing this on paper.
In the modules that follow there are two ways to become familiar with the sound of conversation and the transcription conventions developed to represent them.
The first module, an interactive glossary, allows you to associate the symbols developed for transcribing conversation with the sounds they represent.
After you have become somewhat familiar with these symbols, you can try listening to a stretch of talk (Module 2) while reading a transcript of it. If you run into any symbols you don’t understand, play the sound again and attempt to figure what it represents, and how. Check the glossary (by clicking on the symbol) to make sure you were right.