A casual conversation
The goal of a sociolinguistic interview is to create a setting conducive to casual speech, that way the most natural discourse can occur. The interviewer will choose a comfortable space so the exchange can feel more like a conversation rather than an interview. The participant does have to fill out an acknowledgement and consent form, but that is taken ahead of time, so the interview does not seem intimidating.
The Interview
The interview can be recorded on a laptop, a smart phone, or an audio recorder. The interview is semi-structured. This means the interviewer has reviewed a list of possible questions, on topics including personal experiences, memories, etc. However, it is left up to the participant as to where the conversation flows. It is the job of the interviewer to encourage the participant to lead the conversation, by asking follow-up questions on their points and ask for greater detail. The interview is 1 hour long. The last 10 minutes are dedicated to language-related topics, so that these questions don't affect the rest of the interview.
Post Interview
The demographic information is recorded after the interview, so that these more formal parts do not impact the natural, casual flow of the conversation. The participant also fills out a bilingual language profile, where the participant reports:
- language history (such as when they started speaking each language)
- language use (approximately how often they speak Spanish/English with friends)
- language competency (a self-assessment in skills such as speaking, reading, writing)
- language attitudes (rating of statements like 'I feel myself when I speak ___')
The Transcription
In order to make the raw speech data easier to analyze, the interview is completely transcribed word-for-word. The speech of transcript is not edited in anyway, with the exception of identifying information. This includes repeated words, stutters, etc.
The interview is transcribed using WEBVTT formatting in order to enable time-alignment (so the interview is connected with the audio file). This creates a clickable transcript where you can click the text and the audio for that part of the interview plays.
The transcript and audio are anonymized, that is, personal identifying information is deleted/muted, such as birthdates, addresses, places of work, schools attended, etc. The transcript and audio also go through several rounds of revision for reliability, so that the transcript matches the audio exactly.
Funding
This project was made possible in part by funding from:
Credits:
Created with images by Martin Adams - "Studying in the Library" • Oscar Ivan Esquivel Arteaga - "untitled image" • Jess Bailey - "untitled image" • Glenn Carstens-Peters - "If you feel the desire to write a book, what would it be about?"