On Ilkla Moor Baht Apostrophes

December 13, 2011 1:19 PM

Available resources or advice for transcribing dialect speech?

I am in the process of retranscribing some dialect stories that were taken down around 1890. The original transcriber did a really poor job, including a deal of eye dialect and a huge amount of apologetic apostrophe, both of which I know to cut out. However, is there any good advice available for the amateur transcriber on how to present dialect in an honest but understandable way? I want to do right by the story–tellers by preserving their dialect but without insulting them.

Online resources are preferred, or general advice if you have done similar work.

For information:

the dialect is English,

known to me personally so I can make necessary judgement calls,

for an ordinary readership,

and not using phonetic transcription.

Thanks for your time.

posted by Jehan to Writing & Language (4 answers total)

I'm sorry to say, but if you want to capture dialect features, you really need to use phonetic (IPA) transcription. Using the 26 letters of English is not going to capture all the phonological alternations, because so many letters (especially vowels) can be pronounced in myriad viable ways and it will be impossible to disambiguate which pronunciation is intended with, let's say the letter 'a' in the word 'bath'.

You will be able to capture lexis and syntax though, but that's not the complete picture by any means. Sorry for the non-answer, but without IPA, you're likely to recreate the same problem as the previous transcriber, just in different ways.
posted by iamkimiam at 1:27 PM on December 13, 2011

Some friends of mine did an oral history project in 'ull. They did a training session at the British library which covered things like recording techniques but also went into the ethics etc of the editing and transcription process. Might be worth checking out.
posted by pmcp at 1:42 PM on December 13, 2011

This is a massively complex issue; even if you decide on a principled approach over all, there are going to be a zillion concrete cases where it's hard to figure out how to apply that principle. This is true even when you have what seems like it should be a nice clear target like "preserve as much phonetic detail as possible" or "use standard orthography so it's searchable". "Accessible and meaningful for an ordinary reader" is a huge gray area that I think will be very difficult to navigate. If you were working for a research audience I would have some suggestions for you, but I don't have any experience with doing dialect transcription for a lay audience.

The people I know who are by far the best at giving respectful and accurate portrayals of dialect speech to a lay audience are the folks at the North Carolina Language and Life Project. If the resources you're looking for exist, they probably know about them. They might also have good advice from their own experience (I'm not sure how much transcription they produce for public consumption, but their dialect curriculum must deal with this issue in some way). I'd suggest contacting them to ask this question.
posted by ootandaboot at 3:42 PM on December 13, 2011

I'd create some kind of key or description of the conventions you choose, and then reference that at the top of each transcribed document. If people understand your intent and have a way to easily understand your system, it might be very helpful. You can use IPA and/or other reference points in your key.
posted by amtho at 7:37 PM on December 13, 2011