Chapter 12 – Analysing qualitative data

This chapter is a practical introduction to the methods employed by qualitative researchers for collecting, analysing and reporting their data.

Exercises

Exercise 12.1

Select true or false for each item to test your understanding of qualitative data.

Appendix

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Download – Overwhelming and unjust

Further Information

The Jefferson transcription system

Chapter 12 of the book promises to provide some details of the Jefferson transcription system, used to transcribe recorded conversations into text. Here they are. First of all though a few points about the system.

1. The system is used thoroughly in conversation analysis (see Hutchby and Wooffitt, 1998 – reference is in the book). In this approach there are two major concerns – those of turn-taking and of the characteristics of speech delivery. As you can see from the symbols below, many of these concern how a speech partner overlaps or take over from another (e.g., simply the fact of transcription line numbers) and how speech is presented (emphasis, rising tone, pauses and so on). As an exercise listen to a conversation and observe how people use pauses in order to ‘keep the floor, i.e., indicate that they want to go on speaking and not be interrupted. In some Australian and Californian accents there is a marked up turn at the end of an utterance when the speaker indicates the end of their speech and invites a reply.

2. The most important point is that the system is intricate and time hogging so check first that you really do need to use it! Most grounded theory approaches would not transcribe in this kind of detail. The system is used mainly in conversation analysis where researchers are interested in the analysis of para-linguistics, in a nutshell, not what is said but how it is said, for instance, emphasis, rising and falling tones, hesitations, etc. Such hesitation might indicate, for instance, that the speaker is embarrassed or in some way has a problem with what they are saying. You can of course indicate that there was such hesitation without resorting to the details of Jefferson.

3. Any two transcribers will come up with slightly different transcriptions. There is no clear criterion as to what counts as a marked or ‘less marked’ fall in pitch, for instance.

4. Each new utterance (according to the researcher’s hearing) is given a new line number in the transcript.

5. You would need a recording system that permits you to constantly rewind very short sections of speech. Researchers have traditionally used transcription machines although computer programmes can now do the job quite well.

John:	Used on the left hand side of the transcript indicates the speaker.
?:	Indicates the speaker is unknown to the transcriber; ?John: indicates a guess that the speaker is John.
(0.5)	Indicates a time interval in seconds.
(.)	Indicates a pause of less than 0.2 seconds.
=	‘Latching’ – the point where one person’s speech ends and continues on a new line without pause, usually after a fragment from their conversation partner, e.g., A: I got the train tickets for Sunday and I – = B: [Sun::day!] A: = yeah (.) you said Sunday didn’t you
[ ]	Brackets used where there is overlapping talk as in the example above where speaker B overlaps speaker A.
hh	Speaker breathes out – more hs means a longer breath.
.hh	Speaker breathes in – more hs, longer intake of breath.
(( ))	Double brackets can be used to describe a non-verbal sound (such as a kettle boiling) or something else in the context which the transcriber would like to convey (e.g., that a person is frowning whilst speaking).
–	Indicates the last word was suddenly cut off as in the example above, first line.
:	The previous sound has been stretched; more colons greater stretching, as in thee example above after ‘Sun’.
!	Indicates emphasis – energised speech.
( )	The passage of speech is unclear. The distance between indicates the estimated length of the piece. If there is speech between the brackets it is the transcriber’s best ‘guess’ at the speech.
.	fall in tone indicating a stop
,	‘continuing’ intonation
?	Rising inflection, as in but not exclusively so, a question.
¯	Indicate marked rising or falling of tone – placed before the rise/fall.
a:	Less marked fall in pitch as in – B: ‘whaddya gonna do: there
a:	Less marked rise in pitch (underlined colon).
Underline	Emphasis on the underlined section.
SHOUT	Indicates the word in capitals was louder than those around it.
° °	Speech between is noticeably softer than surrounding speech.
> <	Speech between is quicker than the rest.
< >	Speech between is slowed down.

Largely based on Hutchby and Woffitt (1998) p. vi

A few of the symbols can be seen in this conversation sequence.

1 A: gmornin:. j’sleep OK

2 B: huh

3 A: was that a yes

4 B: hhh° yer °

5 A: HALL¯O:: (0.5) are we awake.

6 B: <just about>

7 A: >look we really need to talk [about the holiday<

8 B: [I know (.) the holiday

If you’d like to get practice specifically with conversation analysis or at least with this kind of transcription you could visit Charles Antaki’s Conversation Analysis website at: www.homepages.lboro.ac.uk/~ssca1/sitemenu.htm where you can go through a script and look at various stages of transcription ending with a version using the notation system above.