Transcription Aesthetics

I start with a premise that you may disagree with: a lot of the transcripts that discourse analysts publish are bad. I explain that what I mean by this, and then propose a solution: let’s make published transcripts good, in the hopes of devising new possibilities for growing discourse analytic know...

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Main Author: Keith M. Murphy
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago 2021-04-01
Series:Semiotic Review
Subjects:
Online Access:https://semioticreview.com/sr/index.php/srindex/article/view/62
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author Keith M. Murphy
author_facet Keith M. Murphy
author_sort Keith M. Murphy
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description I start with a premise that you may disagree with: a lot of the transcripts that discourse analysts publish are bad. I explain that what I mean by this, and then propose a solution: let’s make published transcripts good, in the hopes of devising new possibilities for growing discourse analytic knowledge. I offer four provisional and interrelated principles that I argue are critical for developing a new kind of transcription aesthetics, along with some ideas and examples for how to employ them. The first principle sets the stage for those that follow: treat transcription not as a “word process” that produces written-text artifacts, but a graphic process that produces images. The second is to work compositionally, approaching each aspect of the transcript as worthy of its own specific kinds of attention. The third principle is to think openly about order when designing a transcript; and the fourth principle is to prioritize intelligibility. In the end and along the way, I make some arguments for why reformulating transcribing as a design process can help advance discourse analytic practice and theory.
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spelling doaj-art-873c24c65dd4439c84eb0d8b7a1d5e3f2025-07-29T17:16:26ZengDepartment of Anthropology, University of ChicagoSemiotic Review3066-81072021-04-01910.71743/cg5x2s37Transcription AestheticsKeith M. Murphy I start with a premise that you may disagree with: a lot of the transcripts that discourse analysts publish are bad. I explain that what I mean by this, and then propose a solution: let’s make published transcripts good, in the hopes of devising new possibilities for growing discourse analytic knowledge. I offer four provisional and interrelated principles that I argue are critical for developing a new kind of transcription aesthetics, along with some ideas and examples for how to employ them. The first principle sets the stage for those that follow: treat transcription not as a “word process” that produces written-text artifacts, but a graphic process that produces images. The second is to work compositionally, approaching each aspect of the transcript as worthy of its own specific kinds of attention. The third principle is to think openly about order when designing a transcript; and the fourth principle is to prioritize intelligibility. In the end and along the way, I make some arguments for why reformulating transcribing as a design process can help advance discourse analytic practice and theory. https://semioticreview.com/sr/index.php/srindex/article/view/62transcriptiongraphic designaestheticsmultimodality
spellingShingle Keith M. Murphy
Transcription Aesthetics
Semiotic Review
transcription
graphic design
aesthetics
multimodality
title Transcription Aesthetics
title_full Transcription Aesthetics
title_fullStr Transcription Aesthetics
title_full_unstemmed Transcription Aesthetics
title_short Transcription Aesthetics
title_sort transcription aesthetics
topic transcription
graphic design
aesthetics
multimodality
url https://semioticreview.com/sr/index.php/srindex/article/view/62
work_keys_str_mv AT keithmmurphy transcriptionaesthetics