Thoughts about my informal conversation

(I'm still figuring out how this blog works, so you will find the transcript posted below this posting.)

Even with the tediousness of creating a transcript, I thoroughly enjoyed this assignment. I have complete sympathy for people who spend many hours transcribing audio or video files!

It was so much fun to listen to this conversation over and over and think about all that occurred. First of all, I think I shocked myself with the things I discovered about this conversation. For example, I really couldn't believe how much interrupting and overlapping there was. (Should I be ashamed that most of it was me?!) Yet it was completely acceptable in this situation. No one was upset and no one certainly stopped contributing to the conversation because of it.

The greatest difficulty I had in transcribing the conversation was how the physical movements, facial expressions, and body language were nearly impossible to replicate in the transcript. Now, if I had many more hours and a detailed system (as Agar used in his article), I might have been able to be more accurate, but it would have taken another page of writing to explain all the symbols. The one element I could not put into the transcript was voice tone. There were times when sarcasm was used and I couldn't quite figure out how to represent that. So I know the transcript doesn't do the conversation justice.

I found many adjacency pairs in our conversation. When D was asking me questions about the parking meter, I always gave an answer to her question and vice versa. That structure was certainly present. Both structures that Agar mentions are present in this conversation--shift of topic and turn taking. Our turn taking was predictable and when the topic shifted we both went with it. No one seemed offended or upset if a prior topic was never revisited.

One thing stands out to me about how this informal conversation is different from more formal ones. I first need to state that the beginning portion of this conversation was taking place in a car. D was driving and I was in the front seat. You will notice very quickly that we are looking for a parking space. The rest of the conversation then took place on the sidewalk by the parking meter. Something that stands out in my mind about this conversation is the small amount of eye contact that took place. Now when she was driving, of course there was good reason for her to not constantly look over at me. Yet even when we had exited the car, there still was not constant eye contact like you might expect to find in some conversations, such as an interview. We were very comfortable looking at other things, such as the coin purse or umbrella, instead of each other. Yet we still knew that the other was paying attention and was very involved in the conversation. In no way do I believe either of us were being rude, it just came with the fact that we were so comfortable with each other.

Another thing that amazed me was how many sentences were never completed, yet we both knew what the other was saying or would have said anyway. The meaning was never lost. Again, I believe in a more formal setting, this would not have happened or would have at least occurred very rarely.

Timing was also a unique facet of the conversation. I was amazed at how long some of the pauses were in the middle of a thought. I know that some of the pauses were because D was busy digging out change from her coin purse. Yet the pauses didn't make her lose her train of thought or prevent me from understanding what she was trying to say. The pauses were much more noticeable and annoying when I was listening to the recorded conversation.

I feel like I'm much more aware of my conversational habits and can see how informal conversations differ from more formal ones. I look forward to reading your comments.