Analysing Spoken Texts

As an oral mode, spoken texts need to be treated differently from written texts, requiring a transcription process first to make the texts analysable. This chapter discusses some pertinent issues relating to transcription, including decisions needed when presenting transcriptions and basic transcription conventions and symbols. Two useful approaches for spoken texts, Conversation Analysis and Ethnographic Discourse Analysis are then introduced. The two case studies demonstrate how to apply analysis to monologic and dialogic (interactive) spoken texts before offering readers a chance to try out their own analysis on a transcript of an interactive exchange.