Performance

This week, I recorded a few of my friends and I as we had dinner. The conversation flowed smoothly the whole time. There were a couple of places where one person dominated the conversation by telling some sort of story. It was interesting to note how these exchanges began. The first incident occured during a slight lull in conversation when one friend exclamed, "Oh my god, I have to tell you what I saw yesterday!" The then proceeded to tell us about a car accident that she witnessed while driving home from work. During this performance, I noticed that she spoke louder than she or anyone else had during normal conversation. I also noticed (of course this didn't show up on the tape) that she moved forward in her chair, sat up straighter, and used more and bigger hand and arm gestures. It was very obviously a performance for her. For the most part, the rest of the group was silent during the story, but there were some exclamations of "Oh my god!" and a few gasps. These reactions seemed to encourage the speaker to contintue with the story. The speaker concluded the story by resuming her more comfortable sitting position, lowering the volume of her voice, and saying, "Anyway, it was the scariest this I've ever seen. I'm so glad no one was hurt." At this point, the rest of the friends at the table feel free to share their reactions, reflections, and questions about the story that was told.

The second story occured a little while later. This one differed slightly in how it began because the storyteller was encouraged to begin by the friend sitting next to her. The rest of the table was interested even before she began becuase of the way her friend was encouraging her. She didn't change her body language quite as drastically as the other storyteller, perhaps because her story was less "exciting" or because she only felt she had to tell it because her friend wanted her to. Again, the rest of the group was mostly quiet while she told her story, and again, she used a kind of "wrap up" statement and a physical repositioning of her body to indicate that she was finished.

These brief storytelling sessions seemed to be important to the overall conversation as it helped keep the conversation flowing and gave us new topics to discuss. I think that oral literacy and performance are very important to the overall literacy of children. I plan to incorporate this into my library with puppet shows and retellings of stories. I read the Bauman and Briggs article, but I had some difficulty understanding it, and I'm having some difficulty relating it to the above recordings. I'd love any feedback. :)

Conversation Assignment

Here's my transcript from the conversation I recorded. The conversation was held between myself and 4 coworkers. We were gathered around a table working on our own things about a half hour before a formal meeting started. Although this did take place at school and the conversation is mostly about work, I feel that its informal nature meets the requirements for this assignment. We would never have been talking this candidly had our boss been there or had it been a formal meeting. All names have been changed except mine. I've included some notes throughout the transcript in parentheses. But I also wanted to mention a few other issues that came up during this process. First of all, with that many people, it was sometimes very hard to hear who was speaking and what they were saying. Part of this is due to the technology I used to record the conversation (just a handheld cassette tape recorder) and the distance some participants were sitting from the device. But, this was also due to the natural tendancy of people to interrupt one another, especially in a fairly large group. For example, when we all agreed with the main speaker, April, several people would vocalize their agreements at the same time, usually in the middle of April's utterance. On the other hand, some would indicate agreement by nodding or some other nonverbal cue, which was not captured on the tape. Another problem with a group this large was that there were often side conversations going on at the same time as the "main" conversation. This was hard to hear on the tape, and hard to transcribe. I also had some trouble with using punctuation when transcribing this conversation. It was so informal that it was often difficult to tell when sentences ended or began. I also noticed that the speaker would sometimes trail off and not completely finish a thought, especially when getting nonverbal cues from the audience that they understood what was being said. It's also very hard to capture the inflection of any one speaker's voice. I'd be interested in another person's view on how April is speaking. I know what her tone was because I was there, but I'd be interested to know what someone else thinks just by reading the transcript. It's difficult to convey that with only punctuation, which is why it's so difficult to write with "voice." It's so intangible and depends so much on the reader's own experiences and what the reader infers is the tone or inflection with which characters in print speak. So, without further ado, here's the transcript. Enjoy! :)

April: That was wrong. The survey Jane Smith sent out from copy center? (inflection idicates a question here, although it’s not really a question. Speaker seems to be checking for understanding from her audience since we looked at her inquisitively, wondering to what she was referring).
Sally: Oh, I think I got that.
Jennifer: Yeah, it was. (said simultaneously with Sally)
A: That was totally inappropriate and totally wrong, and I am pissed (“pissed” said in a stage whisper).
J: I started it, but I stopped about half way through and didn’t finish.
A: I did too! (Overlapped with the last part of J’s utterance). It’s wrong and I emailed her all these questions like, ok, have you thought about people who roam and go to different campuses. (inflection did not suggest question, thought technically this is one. It is difficult to discern where sentences end during this type of informal conversation) I am equally at four places. I mean I make copies in four places.
J: Right (spoken while A was talking)
S: Uh huh (also spoken while A was talking)
A: I said, so, you know, how do you want me to fill this out? I can take my best scenario and I can take my worst scenario and I can throw the results all off and she said “Oh, you have to fill a survey out for every single campus or place…” That’ll do it, I said nope. I sent it to Ricky and said, this is…
J: No! (spoken while A talking)
Matt: What survey is this? (Matt is just joining the conversation having been previously engaged in some work he was doing on his laptop. Spoken to J while A was speaking).
J: That one Jane Smith sent out from copy center.
A: And not only that, (was not involved in side conversation between M and J, so continues speaking) but, you know, teachers don’t know copy and print, you know, they don’t…
J: No, I know (agreeing with A)
A: You know, they don’t, you know when they’re making copies they may just go File Print, then that’s making copies. Well, if that network printer’s broken, then, you know, tech services never supports them. Or are they talking about the Xerox?
S: Right, I didn’t know either, I had questions.
A: That is wrong. (overlapped with S). And, you know, she didn’t get approval, because Wanda (referring to our supervisor) can’t even get approval for a freakin’ 5 question survey!
S: First of all, did you notice the spelling mistake on the…
A: Yes, I did (overlaps S) I almost emailed her back and said, you know, you might want to change this. And, did you notice they didn’t use district, um…
J: No, they didn’t.
A: Netstart Gold (an outsider would have trouble with this portion of the conversation because of the jargon unique to our circumstances.)
J: No, they used Survey Monkey.
A: But Sam (referring to the director of technology) was supposed to address it, and he never did. (Pause) That survey is long!
S: It was very long.
A: And you had to really think about it. And I’m thinking, if I’m getting confused about copying and printing, what are the teachers doing.
M: What was it, when you… what was this about, just, just from the copy center?
A: (overlaps M) It all boils down to, well this is hot, because Amelia (referring to a coworker) has been doing the right thing, you know, basically the teachers don’t know the difference between Xerox, you know when they submit a help ticket (What A means is teachers don’t know the difference between the Xerox copiers and the networked printers, but she didn’t quite finish the thought because we were all nodding and giving her indications that we understood what two things she was talking about). So, my understanding is Amelia was getting a lot of, like Jane would make changes to the Xerox printers, and she wouldn’t tell anybody, so then… Hey! (another coworker just entered the room, A is greeting her). So then, Amelia was getting a whole bunch of tickets, and Amelia I think just got fed up ‘cause Amelia knows what she’s doing, and Jane was making all these changes to IP addresses…
Linda: (overlaps A) and they were never aware of…
A: (overlaps L) and it was more than that, too, I mean Amelia is just totally fed up… Are you taping this? (J nods, A giggles) You’re kidding! Wait, wait, let me rephrase…
M: (very loud into the recorder) Yes, we got this.
S: Change names, change names (overlaps M)
A: (giggling) I don’t care! Do it! My name is not April! (said in very loud whisper, everyone laughs) You know how Homer whispers? (referring to The Simpsons)
M: We are not illegally copying a DVD (overlapping A). Don’t transcribe that.
A: (in Homer whisper again) It’s not secret. (overlapping M)
J: I’m not, I don’t know what you guys are doing (speaking to M about the DVD).