Transcription Conventions
Symbol | Significance |
|---|---|
> < | Speeding up speech |
< > | Slowing down speech |
? | Strong rise in intonation and can be, but is not necessarily, an interrogative |
↑ | Raised intonation |
↓ | Falling intonation |
. | Falling or final intonation contour |
CAPS | Raised voice, usually shouting |
__ | Stress or emphasis |
° | Words spoken quietly or softly |
°° | Whispering |
:: | Prolongation of the preceding sound |
- | Cut off prior word or sound |
(( )) | Authors’ comments |
These conversational analysis transcription conventions are adapted from Emanuel A. Schegloff, Sequence Organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511791208. I use this notation system when transcribing turns of talk (or dialogue) to represent the linguistic and paralinguistic resources speakers use in conversation; however, for increased legibility, I do not apply these conventions to block quotes presented without surrounding talk. Spanish punctuation—for example, a question mark or exclamation point—is displayed differently depending on the text: in the transcripts it represents intonation (and is not inverted at the start of a sentence), while in the block quotes it follows orthographic conventions in Spanish (and is inverted at the beginning of a phrase).