Visual transcriptions as socio-technical assemblages

Abstract

With the development of visual digital technologies it has become more common in the social sciences to both use and present research visually. This article explores different strategies for working with and including images in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (EMCA) transcriptions. The purpose is to investigate how, and if, the ontology of the transcript changes when verbal transcripts become visual transcripts. The article explores what ensures that a transcript is still a transcript and what happens to the reflexive interpretative strategy fundamental to EMCA when new digital technologies make it possible to incorporate images in transcripts. The article’s focus is on the social life of methods as well as methodological productivity showing how images can enact different social ‘realities’ and scientific knowledge.

Exploring material things in family life : Morality and intimacy in sibling- and child-parent interaction

“…Such processes involve transformations of spoken language, the material things present and embodied movements. Transcripts are not solely a representation of what has happened, or been said or done in a recording, but rather each action is carefully selected and presented in ways that highlight the central elements of the analysis, making the process of transcribing an important part of the analytical work (Aarsand & Sparrman, 2021;C. Goodwin, 1994;Melander, 2009;Ochs, 1997).…”

“…The transcripts are organised in turns, each line representing an utterance and/or an embodied (human) action. Conducting multimodal interaction transcriptions does not mean that a researcher should attend to all the verbal and nonverbal acts that the participants use at once; rather, the aspects of interaction that the researcher highlights reflect the research interest and the phenomenon that is being studied (Aarsand & Sparrman, 2021;C. Goodwin, 1994;Melander, 2009;Ochs, 1997).…”

“…Once the transcripts had been initially drafted, I proceeded to choose frame-grabs from the video recordings to accompany them. Using frame-grabs or line drawings to accompany transcripts is a common practice when focusing on multimodality (Aarsand & Sparrman, 2021;Melander, 2009). The frame-grabs are often chosen "to capture the variety of subtle ways that bodies in local circumstances are deployed to accomplish relevant action" (M. H. Goodwin et al, 2012, p.21).…”

The epistemological commitments of modes: opportunities and challenges for science learning

“…One student in each of the three groups wore a head-mounted GoPro camera collecting video data (Frøyland et al, 2015), and thus the students determined what was being recorded (cf. Aarsand and Sparrman, 2021). The students were asked to draw and explain what was taking place in a demonstration experiment that simulated the greenhouse effect.…”

Translation and dealing with “the other” in scholarly research and publishing:

“…With the development of digital technologies, scholars, especially in the social sciences, have developed alternative ways of transcription, such as visual transcription (seeAarsand & Sparrman, 2021).…”