Transcribing as Research: “Manual” Transcription and Conversation Analysis

Abstract

Moore (2015/this issue) discusses possibilities afforded by state-of-the-art automated transcription technologies for conversation analytic (CA) research. Since these technologies may become attractive to conversation analysts, their impact should be carefully considered. In this commentary, I offer some words of caution about adopting automated transcription techniques. Three issues are raised: first, the role of transcribing in research and training; second, potential influences of automated transcription on research agendas; and, third, some analytic problems involved in relying on a large bank of transcribed yet unfamiliar data. Data are in American English.

I would like to thank Alexa Hepburn and Jenny Mandelbaum for helpful advice and suggestions on writing this commentary.