Henry: Explaining Halo

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: .hh I’d like to know erm how young people can explain how to do their favourite game. so we’ve talked earlier and your favourite game is,

YP: call of duty

A: mmhmm (.) now why is that your favourite game.

YP: no (0.5) halo I mean

A: ok halo ok

YP: [yeah

A: and why is that your favourite game then.

YP: I like (0.5) it (.) to play a game and it’s good ( ) playing on it

A: mhm (0.5) ok mhm .hhh now (.) I’ve (.) never played (.) halo or call of duty actually

YP: [mm

A: .hh and I’d like you now to just describe in as much detail as you can how you play it.

YP: [yeah

YP: how to play it.

A: yes please.

YP: a is jump, (2) ( ) is knife, ( ) hit people, (1) r-t is (2.4) (something),

A: [mhm

YP: (1) ( ) is throwing a bomb,

A: [mhm?

YP: y is guns, (1.7) and (1.3) moving the left (stick) and the-the right (stick) is moving around,

A: [mhm

YP: left (stick) is looking,

A: mhm

YP: and (.) the story of halo (0.8) is about it (.) is someone wants to (0.8) s.oh dear (1.7) the story about (0.2) aliens come to earth to kill people

A: mm

YP: and (0.5) then kill the kill ( ) then go in a big ship and go in space () follow them,

A: mm?

YP: and try to kill them on halo one and two and three

A: mm

YP: the new one halo four coming out in November er it’s for four (runners) erm it’s er coming ( ) want to kill the criminals of (2) in the world, (0.7) and (2) erm

A: [mm

YP: (3.4) the four runners want to kill ( ) (0.5) .hh and (burps) (8) you need to kill .hhh aliens and the four runners (or two) to try to not (1.3) do not try to be dead

A: [mm

YP: all the time it will start over again.

A: right

YP: and (6.5) that’s it.

A: - that’s it lovely .hh so how (.) how do you win.

YP: [yeah

YP: (0.5) to complete a level.

A: and what do you have to do to do that.

YP: (1) go to (start) something and oh kill people all the way and to the white the dome to complete it.

A: mhm (.) and (.) what sort of skills do you need to be good at halo.

YP: (1.5) very good skills.

A: mm

YP: yeah good all your hands ( ).

A: mm

YP: ( )

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 Henry's peers (who undertook the task but whose clips are not included in this resource), we can see that Henry's mean T-unit length is quite short: at 6.26 words, it is one of the shortest mean T-unit lengths. Henry's clausal density is the lowest of all participants, at only 1.07: Henry uses very few subordinate clauses in his language sample, and there is no evidence of any adverbial clauses present. This infrequent use of complex sentences is reflected in the low mean T-unit length.

Using normative data from Nippold et al's 2005 study, we see that both Henry's mean T-unit length and his clausal density are significantly lower than for his typically-developing age-matched peers. This suggests that Henry's expressive language is likely to be much less complex than we might expect from his typically-developing age-matched peers.