talk-in-interaction

analysis, social organization, classroom talk

Thursday, May 19, 2005

not using much of what people say

In my blog posts I haven't used long excerpts from transcripts. Two reasons. One is practical. When I try to post longer sections of talk the blog html language mucks around with the transcript. So, talk isn't aligned properly and doesn't present the transcript as it actually has been developed by me. For example, here is something taken from my PhD transcript that I have just cut and pasted.

((Carl holding up his book to the teacher))
Teacher:
at school we (0.4) made
Carl:
((shakes head)) no
Teacher:
yeah (3.0) come on (1.8) ((hands book back to Ivan without looking at him)) now you can draw a quick little (0.2) small little picture

As you can see. the text is all out of alignment. I haven't worked out yet how to fix it up. Bugs me no end.

The second reason for only using short excerpts? I have "opened up" my blog to my students at uni i.e given them the blog address. First year students have to develop a transcript of talk and analyse it. By just focusing on short excerpts from transcripts in this blog I hope to illustrate that a little bit of talk can tell a lot about what people do in their interactions (if you look closely).

Unfortunately posting blogs (on the go) doesn't always involve close analysis of talk. For example in yesterday's post about Robyn's CAT scan I could have analysed the technician's use of "well" i.e. doesn't "well" seem to herald the comment to come "all the best" etc. And, there was that pause that perhaps marked out the next bit of talk for Robyn ("all the best with that"). Robyn waited after "well" to hear what was coming. And then, she made her own interpretation. Perhaps it wasn't what the technician intended but what else was Robyn to go on? Talk in interaction.

1 Comments:

At 11:12 PM, Blogger christinA said...

Rougehomme, great point. There has ACTUALLY been a lot of studies of talk between doctors and patients. As your invented example illustrates, consultations between a doctor and patient may begin with an interchange that seems "weird" since by the mere fact that the "patient" is there, it must be obvious that something is wrong. on the other hand, the question, invites the "telling of troubles" i.e. why it is that the person is there? So in this way, a doctor might start the social process of "doing the consultation with patient".

 

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