Now I'm doing it...

I wrote recently about the tensions between written religious texts and new media interpretations. Now I'm wrestling with the converse. Part of the data gathering includes audio recordings of interviews. I'm a baaad typist so transcribing takes me a long time. I may resort to hiring someone to assist with some of that work, although there is a benefit to being immersed in the interviews word by word by word.

Why do I think this is important? Because transcribing is an interpretive process: when I convert spoken word to written text I..."flatten it out" in some respect. Verbal communication consists of the words spoken (sounds which placed together have a symbolic meaning for the speakers of that language). It also consists of intonation, and emphasis. I can speak the same words with mirth, disdain or sarcasm and convey very different intents to my hearers. If I speak them loudly or softly, the force might be greatly changed. And there is context to every speech. Imagine the force of Churchill's words "we shall never surrender" as he stood in Parliament on June 4, 1940. Or the power of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream." More than just spoken words; words with conviction and words with context. When I read the transcription I might not "hear" that.

There are approaches to analysis, such as conversation analysis, that try to capture as much nuance as possible in transcription with systems of symbols (like Jeffersonian transcription). I'm not concerned with the structure of the conversation so I don't need that level of detail. But I still need to transcribe with great care; I'll listen again and again to the audio tapes until I can almost recite them. Each time I will hear something else I missed before. I want to be fair to my informants.

Listening. More important than asking the right questions. I often tell my kids that: don't ask the question if you aren't going to listen to the answer. But I'm so used to reading, I need to re-learn the art of listening lest I fall back into the comfortable world of the printed page. I'm listening....