Robert: Explaining snooker

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: ok what I want you to do now is tell me about (.) your favourite sport. so can you tell me what your favourite sport is.

YP: .hh er I have three favourite sports which is tennis, b-football and snooker or pool.

A: ok now (.) I know a bit about tennis, and I know a bit about football, but I don’t know much about snooker. can you ?tell me about snooker can you describe it for me.

YP: .hhh well snooker is a ball ga-me and it has separate different colours(.)s on the ?table which it has yellow, green brown blue pink and black. .hh and most of all in the triangle-le pile is ?reds.

A: uhuh

YP: and even the white ball-ll you had to hit one red-ed at a ti-me to hit it in the pocket and then you will have to pick a colour when the red is in the pocket.

A: I see

YP: [and you get some points.

A: uhuh

YP: yes.

A: ok and how many people play snooker.

YP: err ff well there’s two players each (.) each they play in the table(1.2)le?

A: mmhmm and what are some of the rules of snooker.

YP: (1.2) er the rules are um if it’s a miss-ss or um (0.5) and um (.) hitting the colour without (0.5) targeting-ing they get a foul and er extra four points or more er (.) to the opponent’s scores further.

A: I see I see and when a player ha-has their turn

YP: yeah

A: (0.5) when does the turn finish.

YP: er when the um ba-when the um (1.5) m-ball isn’t hit in the pock-et.

A: I see and how do you win at snooker.

YP: er you have to win as much (.) high scores as you can-n to defeat your opponent and even when all the reds are gone on the table you have to hit the colour in order(0.5)s.

A: I see so (0.5) what skills do you need to be really good at snooker.

YP: (1) well you just have to take your time and be ready for the position whenever you feel rea(0.4)dy you’ll hit (.) it and to see if the ball goes in the po.cket(0.4)et

A: [I see – I see 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 Robert’s peers (who undertook the task but whose clips are not included in this resource), we can see that Robert uses relatively long utterances: his mean T-unit length is 14.5 words, which is the highest among our sample. His sample has a relatively high clausal density (1.69), which demonstrates that he is able to use subordinate clauses: our transcription shows that these subordinate clauses are of all types.

His sample only includes one ‘fragment’ (and one ‘C-unit’, in response to a question), which suggests that the majority of Robert’s spoken clauses are complete; that is, they include both a subject and a predicate.

Using normative data from Nippold et al.’s 2005 study, Robert’s language sample illustrates a clausal density relatively typical for his age group. His mean T-unit length, at 14.5 words, is longer than those of his typically-developing age-matched peers (10.59). This suggests that Robert is able to use complex language structures such as subordinate clauses with a similar frequency to his typically-developing peers.