1. HOW TO WRITE A TRANSCRIPT
Step by step guide

2. Let’s listen!

3. LISTEN AGAIN!
See if you can transcribe the words of the conversation, 5 seconds at a time
Don’t worry about pauses or anything yet – just get down all the words said

4. LISTEN AGAIN!
See if you can get down some pauses, emphatic stress and prosodic features
Underline / bold = emphatic stress
[square brackets] to show laughter or describe the tone

5. LISTEN AGAIN! See if you can work out where the overlaps are!
Se I you can identify when people are talking at the same time
Add in / / on the places where they are talking at the same time
When you come to write up the transcript fully, you should aim to get the
/ / directly above each other to show clearly it’s an overlap

6. Here’s ONE I did earlier…
Have a look at the real transcript
There is NO EASY WAY to do this, and they are often hard to transcribe and hard to format. But the important thing is to really try to transcribe as much detail as possible
P: - Phil
C: - Chris
Bold – emphatic stress
/ - latch-on
/overlap/

7. P: I hate wearing a tie /Chris/
C: / I / I hate wearing a tie (.) / [undecipherable] /
P / [laughing] / why do we do it
P: then (.1)
C: because it hides our buttons / / I mean you know you wouldn’t
P: / ha ha ha ha ha/
C: want your buttons showing would you /
P: /no. [undecipherable] no people will talk
P: won’t they if / they / can see your buttons (.1)
C: /[laughs]yeah /
C: yeah (.) those buttons (.1)
P: but what is it then I mean why does that connote (.) like uh (.) I’m professional (.)

8. P: that / I’ve got a tie on/
C: /I don’t know / I don’t know and it is a (.) a real constriction isn’t it around your
C: neck / um /
P: / it’s / literally it’s like you’re in a noose isn’t it / yeah /
C: / yeah (.)/
C: um I’ve not experimented with clip-on ties um / but I think I might / no (.)
P: / not since I was like seven /
C: no or a bow tie even (.1) do do you own a bow tie
P: I do own a bow tie (.) yeah (.1) yeah and a cravat
C: / [laughing]/
P: / [laughing]/
C: that’s ridiculous

9. ANALYSIS
In pairs, annotate the transcript with key features including the bullet points below:
Participants and roles - (what are they like and how do you know?)
Register and formality – (how complex or formal are the lexical choices?)
Contextual factors – (how does the context influence the language)
Spoken language features – (what spoken features can you see and why are they present?)
Purpose of conversation – (transactional? Interactional? Phatic?)
Topic management and structure (Who initiates topics and how do they develop?)
Issues such as POWER, SITUATION, GENDER, STANDARD – NON-STANDARD