LINGUIST List 13.567

Fri Mar 1 2002

Sum: Transcription Equipment

Editor for this issue: Marie Klopfenstein <marielinguistlist.org>

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  • Charley Rowe, transcription equipment

    Message 1: transcription equipment

     Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 16:12:13 -0000
    From: Charley Rowe <Charley.Rowenewcastle.ac.uk>
    Subject: transcription equipment


    Recently I asked LINGUISTs whether they knew of footpedals that can attach to computer such as to allow easy keyboard transcription of an audio cd; or alternatively, professional (not "office") quality cassette player + footpedals. That is, the desire was to not have to manipulate a tape player or mouse by hand, allowing both hands consistently free to type.

    1- No one knew of a footpedal-to-computer or footpedal-to-cd connection.

    2- On the cassette end:

    Kate Remlinger (remlingkgvsu.edu) recommended Panasonic cassette transcribers for conversational/discourse and/or linguistic courtroom data.

    Simone Mueller (simone.muelleranglistik.uni-giessen.de) uses the Sanyo TRC-8090 (8080 without voice speed conversion), but warns of ergonomic issues with the footpedal.

    One linguist whose advice I solicited separately has been satisfied with secretarial transcription equipment, as long as the cassette recordings were of good quality.

    Kenjiro Matsuda (kanjiroshoin.ac.jp) recommends the Sony digital transcribe4r MZ-B3 with foot control FS-85B3 especially for use with sociolinguistic interviews.

    3- Some linguists had software recommendations for use with audio CD data:

    Winnie Yiu (winnie.yiuncl.ac.uk) and James Fidelholtz (jfidelsiu.buap.mx) both recommended Voice Walker from Univ.Calif at Santa Barbara linguistics dept. as an alternative to footpedal control. With her office conveniently only one floor down from mine, Winnie was kind enough to "walk" (!) me through the software personally so that I could see how it works. With Voice Walker, you set the length of play time (e.g. 4 seconds), and the segment automatically replays itself--minus ca. the first second of each iteration--until it has played the segment back 3 (or was it 4?) times. This continues throughout the entire recording, which allows both hand-free and foot-free transcription. It also has the advantage of being a small program, so there is not much in the way of a learning curve (sorry to use an overused phrase).

    Heike Behrens (behrenseva.mpg.de) recommended Sonic Chat (of the CHILDES system) which has you highlight the text to be transcribed. >From what I can tell, this is a fairly robust and larger program that has quite a few options for manipulating text while or after transcribing. The the website: childes.psy.cmu.edu and the Chat manual therein.

    On the same site is Clan, which I saw on the CHILDES system site and which Winnie also demo'd for me. This software is also a bit more robust (and larger) than Voice Walker, which means there are a few more options, which may be helpful in the later stages of analysis--particuarly when examining phonetic variants.

    Thank you to all who answered! Charley