Homework 1

12.02.2021
Mathilde Hjelle

Transcription process

For this homework I transcribed two speeches held by Norwegian politicians regarding the
Covid-situation in 2020. The first speech was held by the prime minister, Erna Solberg, on
the 18th of March and addresses the population of Norway in its entirety. The second speech
was held by the minister of health, Bent Høie, on the 27th of April with Norwegian youths as
the target group. The transcription process was straight-forward since both speeches were
performed by politicians well-versed in public speaking without any background
disturbances. Yet, as noted by Bird (2005), transcribing is always an interpretive process
since the transcriber unavoidably leaves some trace of their personal understanding on the
finished transcript. When transcribing spoken words, one will have to make certain decisions
on what to include and what not to include. This, according to Bird (2005), makes the
process of transcription a fundamentally ethical one where researchers must be aware of
how they chose to represent the original speaker (p.228).

In this case there was little room for personal interpretation since the speakers, Solberg and
Høie, both communicate in a very formal, neutral manner. Non-verbal cues, sarcasm, varying
volume, and other potentially challenging factors when transcribing speech were therefore
not an issue in this process. I did, however, have to work on translating Solberg and Høie’s
dialects into standard written Norwegian. Both Solberg and Høie have dialects originating in
the western parts of Norway, and thus some of the words they use are quite different from
official written Norwegian. For example, Høie uses a different personal pronoun when
refereeing to “us”. Rather than directly transcribing theses phrases I chose to translate them
into standard Norwegian, which is usually considered the most professional option for
written texts. Consequently, the speeches may lose some of the personal “flavor” associated
with having a particular accent. In some regard this choice might be critiqued, as it indeed
does undermine the validity of having a dialect compared to that of “standard Norwegian”.
Ultimately, this was a judgment I was willing to make seeing as Solberg and Høie in this
context are not representing themselves nor their home regions, but the Norwegian
government at large. It therefore seemed more appropriate that the dialect was left out in
favor for a more universal grammatic style.

Coding process
When coding the two transcribed speeches I chose to approach my data inductively. This is a
more exploratory technique where themes and their respective codes are not pre-
determined from existing literature but created when reviewing the data at hand (Maxwell,
2005). The act of scanning the data for themes may also be called open coding (Ryan &
Bernard, 2003, p.88). Using ATLAS.ti I could easily work my way through the transcript while
searching for significant phrases that may be codified. Inspired by Ryan and Bernard (2003) I
mainly coded my data based upon repetitions in the material, meaning the recurring
expressions throughout the speeches. For Erna Solberg’s speech there was a repeated
emphasis on collective responsibility which struck me as significant. Quotes such as “We will
pull through this time as well. Together." (transcript 1:2) and “We will all for a period have to
change how we live our lives, so that those of us who are at risk won't lose theirs." (transcript
1:3) exemplify how the prime minister accentuates the importance of collective effort under
the Corona-crisis.

For the second speech the repeated focus seemed to be on temporality. In this speech
health minister Bent Høie centers his focus around temporal notions, and the importance of
“here and now” in the lives of youths. This can be seen with quotes such as: “The spring you
turn 14 won't be there waiting for you. And it is not possible to return to the summer when
you were 17. Graduation celebration cannot be played on repeat” (transcript 2:6).

After first having coded the two speeches based on what struck me as the most important
(based on repetition), I went trough both of the speeches a second time to look for each of
the main theme in the other speech. There did indeed seem to be a focus on temporality in
Solberg’s speech (transcript 1:11, 1:4, 1:12), as well as a focus on collective responsibility in
Høie’s speech (transcript 2:9, 2:11). As noted by Ryan and Bernard (2003) finding similarities
and differences across units of data may be a productive way to identify important themes
(p.91). If similarities in expression are identified between two data sources, such as with the
focus on temporality and collective responsibility in these speeches, this might indicate that
there is a thematic connection that may be further analyzed (Ryan & Bernard, 2003).
Sources
Høie, B. (2020, April 27th) “Takk til ungdommen.” [Speech recording]. Retrieved from:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLyk0GmJBHc&t=11s (2.11.2021)
Solberg, E. (2020, March 18th) “Dette er ikke en tid for vi, dette er en tid for oss.” [Speech
recording]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F48zJ9IwEqY (2.11.2021)

Literature
Bird, Cindy M. (2005). How I Stopped Dreading and Learned to Love
Transcription. Qualitative Inquiry, 11(2), p.226–48. DOI: 10.1177/1077800404273413
Maxwell, J. (2005). Conceptual framework: What do you think is going on? In Qualitative
Research Design: An Interactive Approach, (p.33–64). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/5056_Maxwell_Chapter_3.pdf (Links to an external
site.)
Ryan, G. W., & Bernard, H. R. (2003). Techniques to Identify Themes. Organization
Studies, 15(1), p.85–109. http://fmx.sagepub.com/content/15/1/85.short