Mel and Andy - the university of life: https://www.bbc.co.

uk/sounds/play/p03nsm7z

Once you have chosen your recording, you will need to choose 2-3 minutes to transcribe. DO NOT
TRANSCRIBE THE WHOLE CONVERSATION - THIS WILL TAKE YOU TOO LONG AND YOU'LL HAVE
ENOUGH DATA TO WORK WITH IF YOU TRANSCRIBE 2-3 MINUTES.

Part 2

On your own, transcribe the 2-3 minute section in the following way:

Listen carefully to the recording

Transcribe word for word (as much as possible) using conventional orthographic spelling, but
keep contractions as uttered i.e can’t, don’t. Make sure you transcribe what you hear, not what you
expect/want to hear.

Don’t use conventional punctuation such as commas, full stops or question marks. Use ‘breath
units’ with pauses clearly shown instead. You could use a slash ( / )for a short pause, 2 for a longer
one etc, or a series of dots (.), (..) (…), or dashes(-), (--), (---).

Put ‘umms & errs, laughs etc’ into square brackets.

Put each speaker on a new line and mark overlaps in the conversation.

Leave about 3 spaces between each line:

M1: I love going Judith's lessons/they are such fun//

M2: are you/ bonkers

 Make use of codes such as:

M1 First Male Speaker

M2 Second Male Speaker

F Female

? Unidentified Speaker

-/--/--- Break in speech flow

… Unknown words or Speech Sounds

(I like cats ) Possible interpretation of utterance

(I like cats) Possible interpretation of utterance (more speculative)

(…) Possible speech

[IND] Indistinct>Indecipherable

Descriptive representation, non-speech events or speech events not relevant to

[erm, err, laugh  ]
target conversations
PART 3

 Now have a go at transcribing it into  phonetic script, and as it really is spoken.  For
example,  you may find that a line such as:

                       ‘I  don’t  know  ∣  what  it  is’                                                       

comes out as two main chunks: rather than word for word.   So listen very, very carefully and
transcribe exactly what you hear, not what you expect/want to hear!! 

Guidelines For Phonetic Transcriptions:

 You can transcribe by hand, or by using the computer

o Use either Insert/Symbols-  Arial Unicode  – IPA extensions & normal alphabet

or  http://ipa.typeit.org/full/  (Links to an external site.)  and copy and paste into a
word document

 You only need to add the brackets at the start and finish of the whole transcribed text, not
after every speaker.

 Transcribe what you hear, not what you expect/want to hear.

 Do not confuse the spelling of a word with its pronunciation.

 Do not use any standard punctuation marks like question marks or commas.

 If you haven’t done so already, mark any pauses between chunks of speech (For example,
where the speaker takes a breath or hesitates).

Your transcription should now look like this:

 First line: word for word using conventional English spelling. I  don’t  know    ∣what  it  is’

 Second line: Leave blank

 Third line phonetic script                                                          [    aɪdʊnəʊ ∣     wɒʔ tɪz                   ]

 Fourth line: Leave blank

TASK 1
When you have finished the phonemic transcription, add some narrow transcription
to SOME of your transcript. NB You don’t have to add it to the whole transcript, just have a
go at trying out the conventions in  a few places.

TASK 2

Listen again to the recording & listen carefully for features that we have covered on the
course.  Look at accents and what features are significant/salient for that speaker. For
example, ways of pronouncing vowels (how do they differ from SSBE?), consonants, endings
such as –ing are things that may be different. Don't focus on accent, as this is covered in other
modules. 

You should also identify allophonic variations. Remember that you may not be able to hear
them as they don't affect meaning, but you can identify where they are by the rules we look at
in this module. 

You should also look at Connected Speech Processes. Use narrow transcription to identify
some of the features, and write about the rules underpinning them in your report. 

Finally, you should include something on word stress and syllable structure too. Is there a

word where the stress changes the transcription, for example? Choose a few words and
comment on their syllable structure. You could always put a tree diagram in the appendix! 

Now write a report of your findings and discussion (2000 words +/- 10%).

Include the most significant points and how you were able to account for them. You will also
need to reference phonology literature to highlight your comments.

Do not just describe what is going on, but try and analyse/work out why things are going on.
Please support your comments with clear examples from the transcripts (and cross reference
them) and reference from texts as far as possible. For example, if you say that X pronounces
certain sounds in a particular way and that it is typical of accent Z, you must reference this to
a text where accent Z and its typical features is described.