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Transcribing for Social Research
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Transcribing for Social Research

First Edition
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May 2017 | 224 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd

How can we capture the words, gestures and conduct of study participants? How do we transcribe what happens in social interactions in analytically useful ways? How could systematic and detailed transcription practices benefit research?

This book demonstrates how best to represent talk and interaction in a manageable and academically credible way that enables analysis. It describes and assesses key methodological and epistemological debates about the status of transcription research while also setting out best practice for handling different types of data and forms of social interaction.  

Featuring transcribing basics as well as important recent developments, this book guides you through:

  • Time and sequencing
  • Speech delivery and patterns
  • Non-vocal conduct
  • Emotive displays like laughter, tears, or pain
  • Talk in non-English languages
  • Helpful technological resources

As the first book-length exposition of the Jeffersonian transcription conventions, this well-crafted balance of theory and practice is a must-have resource for any social scientist looking to produce high quality transcripts. 

 
Foreword: Emanuel A Schegloff
 
Chapter 1: Introduction
 
Chapter 2: Getting Started with Transcription
 
Chapter 3: Timing and Sequencing in Transcription
 
Chapter 4: Transcribing Speech Delivery
 
Chapter 5: Transcribing Aspiration and Laughter
 
Chapter 6: Transcribing Crying, Expressions of Pain and Other Non-Speech Sounds
 
Chapter 7: Transcribing Visible Conduct
 
Chapter 8: Transcribing for Languages Other than English
 
Chapter 9: Technological Resources for Transcription
 
Chapter 10: Comparisons, Concerns and Conclusions

The authors’ calm and well-organised coverage pays tribute to a generous variety of transcription styles in the Conversation Analysis tradition. The book is an invaluable source of techniques for capturing the words, whoops, gulps, sighs, eyebrow-flashes and head-nods of language in all the complexity of its performance.

Charles Antaki
Loughborough University

An excellent, clear and comprehensive guide to the transcription of talk-in-interaction from the perspective of conversation analysis, demonstrating the continuing 50 year influence, relevance and productivity of Gail Jefferson’s ground-breaking initiatives.

Charles Goodwin
University of California Los Angeles

The authors argue that standard orthography is unable to represent the ‘words, gestures and conduct of the people being studied’. Drawing on insights from conversation analysis which show how social phenomena are ‘realised through talk in interaction’, as well as discursive psychology and ethnomethodology, Hepburn and Bolden show the reader, in ten succinct and well written chapters, how to capture words and interactions and record them accurately on paper
[...]
Transcribing for Social Research his an invaluable contribution to the methodological literature which will appeal to researchers across a range of disciplines who wish to successfully capture speech in all its complexity.

Paul Webb
Praxis Care, Belfast
SRA Research Matters

Transcription is often be viewed as merely recording what people have said in written form. Simple. In contrast, this book emphasises both the importance and complexity of this element of research..
[..]
..it is pitched at a level which is appropriate for those with a wide range of experiences. Ultimately, this book is likely to become the go-to text for transcription in the social sciences, for both novice and expert researchers alike.

Claire Melia
Keele University
QMiP Bulletin, British Psychological Society

For instructors

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