Spoken Language

Conventions of Transcripts

• Pauses - can be various lengths
• micropauses (equivalent of a comma)
• timed pauses
• Utterances - like sentences but are in spoken language
• don't start with capital letters
• Intonation - rising, falling or flat
• Names - replaced with 'A', 'B' etc to preserve confidentiality of speakers
• Interruptions and overlaps - if someone begins talking while someone is already talking, a slash is used to show when second speaker starts
• if first people stops speaking, it's an interruption
• if both continue to speak, it's an overlap
• Paralinguistic features - body language, actions and tone of voice
• can be indicated in square brackets