Have you been to Seoul?

Not South Korea, but rather a sushi place on South Congress. That was the setting of the conversation I transcribed for this assignment.

It was bit ridiculous to record and attempt my first transcription a dinner party with 8 people at the table. Deborah Tannen I am not. It would have actually been okay, but some people just were not heard on the recording, so there are some missing comments and questions (not many, though).

The most frustrating thing for me was not being able to transcribe the expression with which people said things. Surprise, sarcasm, honest questioning, boredom--these things are heard, but difficult to put into the transcription. Or at least, for me at this point, they are. I also was frustrated that I could not record (or at times even recall) the nonverbal parts of the conversation. However, without a video, I don't know how much anyone could accurately recall these things.

One interesting thing I found was that, even after listening to the same part several times, I would type what I thought the person said (kind of like predicting the next word in reading), but when I would listen again, while I had recorded the gist of what they said, I had not recorded their actual words. After doing that a couple of times, I quit trying to type all but two or three seconds before stopping the tape, typing, and then continuing. I think this is interesting as far as its implications for how we remember conversations. We probably do usually remember the gist, but if we get the wording wrong, then at times we must remember not what the person even meant.