Benjamin L. Stewart

5 min read

DA Module 09 Relationship Talk and Task Talk
DA Module 11 Speech Acts, Turn-Taking, and Role-Play Design

DA Module 10: From Sound to Evidence

Disource Analysis Module 10 Note

Focus: Transcribing natural interaction and building a defensible conversational coding scheme.

This week's purpose

A transcript is an analytical representation of interaction. Decisions about wording, pauses, overlap, emphasis, and context shape the evidence available for analysis. This week, you will transcribe a short authentic interaction, apply explicit coding rules, compare decisions with a peer, and develop an evidence-based explanation with an implication for English language teaching.

Essential understandings

  • Transcription transforms recorded interaction into evidence through selective, purposeful decisions.
  • A defensible code connects an observable feature to an interpretation through context and sequence.
  • Peer checking strengthens analysis when disagreements and revisions remain visible.
  • An ELT recommendation should follow from what participants demonstrably do in the interaction.

Guiding questions

  1. Which features of timing, overlap, emphasis, and context matter for our analytical question?
  2. How can a transcript balance readability and sufficient detail?
  3. How do we distinguish an observable feature from an interpretation of its function?
  4. What do participants’ next turns reveal about how they understood the preceding action?
  5. How should coders document and resolve disagreements?
  6. What can a short interaction support, and what would require more data?

Learning outcomes

By the end of the week, you should be able to:

  • Select a short spoken-interaction sample with a traceable source and an appropriate basis for classroom use.
  • Produce a readable transcript with numbered lines, speaker labels, and analytically relevant timing and delivery features.
  • Define and apply codes for speech acts, adjacency pairs, turn-taking, and repair.
  • Investigate a possible conversational breakdown using surrounding turns and participant responses.
  • Revise transcription and coding decisions through independent peer checking and a documented revision trail.
  • Support two analytical claims and one feasible ELT implication with transcript evidence.

Priority reading: transcription and conversational evidence

Paltridge, B. (2022). Discourse analysis: An introduction (3rd ed.). Bloomsbury Academic. Chapter 5, “Discourse and Conversation.”

Read these sections first:

  • 5.2, “Transcribing and coding conversation analysis data”: Notice how transcription decisions develop alongside analysis. Choose two features you need to preserve in your own sample.
  • 5.3.3, “Turn taking”: Identify evidence of entering, holding, and yielding the floor. Consider whether overlap competes for a turn or supports the ongoing interaction.
  • 5.3.4, “Adjacency pairs”: Distinguish a sequential relationship from two utterances that merely occur beside each other.
  • 5.6, “Repair”: Track the trouble source, who initiates repair, who supplies the repair, and how the sequence continues.

Reading response: Bring one proposed transcription convention, one coding rule, and one question about an ambiguous case.

Use section numbers because EPUB pagination varies. The supplied edition’s copyright page gives 2022; the publisher lists the third edition with a 2021 release date. Match the year to the edition you cite.

Syllabus connection: spoken discourse and ELT

McCarthy, M. (1991). Discourse analysis for language teachers. Cambridge University Press. Chapter 5, “Spoken language.”

Revisit the chapter’s treatment of adjacency pairs, turn-taking, and interactional and transactional talk. Use it to explain how your sample manages relationships, completes a task, or combines both purposes. Finish with one implication for a learner speaking activity. This chapter is listed for Unit III in the course syllabus. Publisher information.

Reference reading: transcription notation

Jefferson, G. (2004). Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. In G. H. Lerner (Ed.), Conversation analysis: Studies from the first generation (pp. 13–31). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.125.02jef.

Consult the glossary for pauses, overlapping talk, cut-offs, sound lengthening, and changes in delivery. Use it as a reference rather than attempting to memorize the complete system. Full text may require library access. The simplified course key below is sufficient for this week’s task and is not a complete Jeffersonian notation system.

Optional extension

Return to Paltridge, Chapter 5, sections 5.4, “Preference organization,” and 5.9, “Conversation analysis and second language conversation.” Consider why a delayed response may require closer analysis and how L2 participants manage understanding together. “Preferred” and “dispreferred” describe sequential organization; they do not simply mean what a speaker personally likes or dislikes.

Key concepts and vocabulary

TermWorking definition
TranscriptionA selective written or symbolic representation of recorded interaction.
Transcription conventionAn agreed notation for a feature such as silence, overlap, or a cut-off.
TurnA contribution to interaction that may contain one or several action units; it need not be a complete sentence.
Transition-relevance placeA point at which a turn could recognizably be complete and speaker change could occur.
ProsodyFeatures of delivery such as rhythm, stress, pitch, and intonation.
Speech actAn action performed through an utterance in context, such as requesting, offering, or declining.
Adjacency pairRelated first and second actions, such as a question and its answer; an inserted sequence can intervene.
RepairPractices for addressing trouble in speaking, hearing, or understanding.
Coding schemeA set of categories with definitions, units, and rules for applying them.
Unit of analysisThe segment or phenomenon being coded, such as an action unit, turn, or sequence.
Inter-coder agreementThe extent to which analysts independently apply the same rules to the same units in the same way.
Analytic memoA record of reasoning, uncertainty, alternatives, and revisions.
Conversational breakdownA disruption in understanding or action progression supported by interactional evidence.

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