Chris: Explaining spoon-making

The following conventions for transcribing speech are taken from ten Have, 2007, and are the conventions which we have used in our transcriptions.

Sequencing marks

[

A single left bracket indicates the point of overlap onset (where the second speaker begins speaking before the first has finished). For example:

A: did I tell you what happened yesterday when I went to the shop

B: [no what happened

=

Equal signs, one at the end of one line and one at the beginning of the next, indicate no 'gap' between the two lines: the second speaker begins speaking at the moment that the first speaker finishes.

Timed intervals

(0.0)

Numbers in brackets indicate elapsed time in silence by tenths of seconds. Thus, (5.6) is a silence of 5 seconds and 6-tenths of a second.

(.)

A dot in brackets indicates a tiny 'gap' within or between utterances.

Characteristics of speech production

word

Underlining indicates some form of stress, via the pitch or loudness of the utterance. An alternative method is to print the stressed part in italics.

::

Colons indicate prolongation of the sound immediately before. Multiple colons indicate a more prolonged sound.

-

A dash indicates that the speaker's speech is cut off abruptly. For example:

A: but then I-

.,?

Punctuation marks are used to indicate characteristics of speech production, especially intonation. They are NOT referring to grammatical units. See below.

.

A full stop indicates a stopping fall in tone: the speech sounds as if the speaker is indicating the end of their speech by lowering the pitch they are speaking at.

,

A comma indicates a continuing intonation, like when you are reading items from a list.

?

A question mark indicates a rising intonation, not a question. For example:

A: I'm reading a great book at the moment?

The absence of an utterance-final marker indicates that the speech did not end with a particular intonation or change in intonation: the speaker did not raise their pitch, or lower it, or sound particularly as if they intended to finish or continue speaking.

¯

Arrows indicate marked shifts into higher or lower pitch in the utterance-part immediately following the arrows. For example, the second part of this phrase would be uttered at a significantly higher pitch than the first:

A: then he said perhaps ­which he knows really annoys me

WORD

Upper-case letters indicate sounds which are particularly loud in relation to the surrounding talk (perhaps shouted).

°

Utterances or utterance-parts bracketed by degree sounds are relatively quieter than the surrounding talk. For example:

A: so I went in and °don't say anything but°I'm going to buy it there instead

< >

Right/left carets bracketing an utterance or utterance-part indicate speeding up

.hhh

A dot-prefix row of 'h's indicates an inbreath. Without the dot, the 'h's indicate an outbreath.

w(h)ord

A bracketed (h), or row of (hhh)s, within a word indicates breathiness as in laughter, crying etc.

Transcriber's doubts and comments

( )

Empty brackets indicate the transcriber's inability to hear what was said. The length of the bracketed space indicates the length of the untranscribed talk. In the 'speaker' designation column, empty brackets indicate inability to identify a speaker.

(word)

Bracketed words are especially dubious hearings or speaker identifications.

(())

Double brackets contain transcriber's descriptions rather than, or in addition to, transcribed speech.

ten Have, P. (1999). Doing conversation analysis: A practical guide. London, Sage.

A: so what would be really nice to do is just to tell us how you make the spoons in the spoon forge here.

YP: (1.2) erm well we to start off with mm like a (0.5) bit called ( ) is cut off and then it’s like hammering and forging and re((yawns))heated – up °pardon me° heated – up (0.5) like with a blow torch is called (anining) because it makes it easier to work (1.5) .hh and we gradually in that repeated process we (1.4) end up (1.5) ma(.)king a (0.4) blank then cut the waste off round the template so they can get the (0.4) shape of the bowl, (1.1) and press it (0.6) and finish it off.

A: right how long does it take from start to finish.

YP: erm ( ) it takes a few weeks to the .hhh have quite a lot of sessions so not that much time in each week spent on anything in particular

A: and what equipment do you use do you know what I mean by equipment

YP: [yeah

A: so what tools or machines

YP: [a blowtorch there’s a ( ) press and (1.6) all the various (0.4) like saws and hammers

A: (5) and skills what skills do you learn when you’re making spoons

YP: [erm well lots of (0.4) skills of working with our hands (0.7) and also you know social skills also target set and so not only focused on the work but on ss-socialising with other students as well

A: right (0.4) can you tell us a bit about that what do you have to do to socialise

YP: erm (1.8) well may-we encouraged to (0.2) talk between ourselves s (0.3) s-about (0.4) what’s going on in the world?

A: (1.3) ok .hh what makes a good spoon how do you know when you’ve got a good spoon.

YP: (1.5) erm when it’s like completely smooth and hasn’t got (1.4) any rough bits?

A: right

YP: n-all (1) really (1.1) n-all n good shape

A: (5) and you used lots of words I didn’t know when you were describing making a spoon, can you tell us what they were again. so you called the top bit (0.4) of the spoon a

YP: a bowl

A: a bowl right

YP: [and and (0.4) (anining) that’s like the blow torch like cos you (0.6) heat it – up (0.3) so then all the little atoms are in nice straight lines so they can be shaped easier

A: [oh ok

A: and what did you call what I would call the handle of the spoon. I think you used another word (0.4) for the handle

YP: erm well (0.3) that is the handle when you start ( ) a bit

A: what did you call it what was the blade I think you called something a blade (1.7) or did I hear that wrong

YP: mm (0.4) nope?

A: no (0.7) so is there a bit of the spoon called a blade

YP: no

A: no ok so it’s the bulb (0.4) and the handle.

YP: nn the bowl and the handle

A: ok good .hh and what happens to the spoons that you make and the other students make.

YP: well these silver (0.8) spoons being a precious metal they go off to assay office

A: ok (0.5) and do they get people buy them? ((T uses C’s real name))

YP: no=

A: =no.

YP: these we get (0.3) they’re in fact one of the few things we actually get to keep.

A: oh you get to keep them.

YP: mm

In order for you to make sense of the information which you have just analysed, we will provide data from five further participants to enable you to make meaningful comparisons. We will also include information on what you would expect from a ‘typically developing’ group of participants for you to refer to; this data is taken from Nippold et al.’s 2005 study.

To compare your data to other data from our sample of young people with language disorder, use the information below.

Participant 1
Total T-units: 29
Mean length of T-unit (wds): 9.2
Clausal density: 1.55

Participant 2
Total T-units: 18
Mean length of T-unit (wds): 6.67
Clausal density: 1.56

Participant 3
Total T-units: 41
Mean length of T-unit (wds): 9.96
Clausal density: 1.39

Participant 4
Total T-units: 15
Mean length of T-unit (wds): 6.00
Clausal density: 1.20

Participant 5
Total T-units: 15
Mean length of T-unit (wds): 8.53
Clausal density: 1.53

To analyse our participants’ language samples in relation to what you would expect from a typically developing young person, use the information below, taken from Nippold et al.’s 2005 study. Nippold’s study used participants who were considered typical language users (that is, they showed no evidence of any speech, language or communication need and had not been identified as having language disorder at any point in their education) from a number of age groups.

They used the expository discourse task to analyse the participants’ language use. Their findings are summarised below. Please note, only the mean (average) result is shown here, for the purposes of comparison and analysis within this Teen Talk task.

Measure: Age 8
Total T-units: 33.05
Mean length of T-unit: 8.59
Clausal density: 1.42

Measure: Age 11
Total T-units: 33.30
Mean length of T-unit: 9.29
Clausal density: 1.45

Measure: Age 13
Total T-units: 36.15
Mean length of T-unit: 8.68
Clausal density: 1.42

Measure: Age 17
Total T-units: 44.00
Mean length of T-unit: 10.59
Clausal density: 1.56

Measure: Age 25
Total T-units: 51.55
Mean length of T-unit: 11.04
Clausal density: 1.54

Measure: Age 44
Total T-units: 60.55
Mean length of T-unit: 11.46
Clausal density: 1.59

Based on: Nippold, M. A., Hesketh, L. J., Duthie, J. K., Mansfield, T. C. (2005) Conversational versus expository discourse: A study of syntactic development in children, adolescents, and adults. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. 48, 1048-1064.

Compared to our sample of Chris’ peers (who undertook the task but whose clips are not included in this resource), we can see that Chris’ mean T-unit length, at 12.9 words, is higher than the other participants. Although his total number of T-units is not high (12), the high mean T-unit length suggests that Chris’ sentences contain plenty of information.

His frequent use of subordinate clauses gives a higher clausal density than the other participants: our transcription shows that these clauses are of all types. This suggests that Chris is a skilled user of complex language structures such as subordinate clauses.

Using normative data from Nippold et al.’s 2005 study, we can see that Chris’ high mean T-unit length is also higher than the mean for his typically-developing age-matched peers (at 10.59). We can also see that Chris’ clausal density (at 1.92) is higher than for his typically-developing age-matched peers (at 1.56), suggesting again that Chris is skilled at using complex language.