For this task, I decided to share a travel story from 2019 in which I journeyed to Prague from Hamburg via train. In my dictation of the story, I tried to speak about the highlights of the trip, including the fact that it took place during my birthday and Christmas. You can view the full text below and my commentary afterwards:
“Hey hi there I spent several years living and working abroad and I lived in Hamburg Germany for some time so I’d like to tell you about a trip that I took during this time. I travelled to Prague from Hamburg. In December 2019 and of course that was before covid head so is that very different time than what works. Oh my god there was taking the train for about 5 hours and I arrived in the city just before midnight I stayed in a hostel that was part of a UNESCO heritage site which was really fascinating and it was it was a beautiful spot to stay in and during my stay I met several people in the hostel that way sleepy, a long-term but I still keep in touch with over Facebook and Instagram many of us are spread out across the clothes across the globe though in different Corners at so some of them are in North America live once in the United States once currently in Mexico and there’s even one who’s residing in the Middle East right now I experienced many of the major sites around Prague with these new friends especially Charles bridge and exploring the major churches and museums around the city but by far I’d say my favourite site was the straw held Library all though you can’t explore the shells contest you can’t read the books or anything you can still enjoy the artwork on the walls and the general Vibe of the library there are also some really great artifacts throughout the library that you can learn about like ancient books and sculptures top it all off it was only about 10 or $15 for ignition see you’re free to take photos to and better believe I took plenty of them I spent both my birthday and Christmas in the city which was actually a first-time occur my international travels I’ve travelled maybe close to Christmas or around New Year’s but I’ve never recovered both bases of my birthday and Christmas so that was a great experience after experiencing Cambria Christmas Market I was able to experience prague’s as well I don’t often refer to experiences as magical but I think that’s how I would characterize the markets in Prague because everything from grandiose display decorations in the city centre to the uniquely check music that played during the day it’s something that I would actually love to experience again maybe not after covid but once covid wayne’s to a considerable degree and it feels safer to travel internationally again I think that’s something I would love to experience not just in Prague that maybe other cities in Europe to so by the end of the trip I had over 100 photos taken around the city and some great video footage to I would highly recommend that you also visit Prague again whenever it’s safe to to do so and if you have a strong appreciation for architecture and a very unique culture that’s nestled in Europe you should definitely check out Prague at some point”
When observing the “raw” text generated by the voice-to-text technology, there are several distinct features that render it deviant from the conventions of written English. These include run-on sentences, periods in incorrect places, lack of commas and semi-colons, and partially or fully incorrect capitalization of proper nouns. I consider these to be “mistakes” because, when read, these make the story more difficult to follow and thus less enjoyable overall. In my view, grammatical rules in English do not exist for their own sake; they exist because they provide coherence and logical structure to a story or any other written work.
I would estimate that about 70-75% of the content was transcribed correctly. Interestingly, the acronym “UNESCO” was correctly interpreted but some words such as “Hamburg”, “hit”, “shelves”, “wanes”, and “globe” were misinterpreted in various places throughout my dictation. The word “Czech” was misinterpreted as “check” too. Another notable observation is that the city name “Prague” is properly capitalized in some parts of the text, but not others – this I found to be especially strange, seeing as it is spelled correctly in both its correct and incorrect instances. The word “corners” is capitalized at one point in the text as well, and I’m not sure what accounts for that error. Additionally, the numerical values I dictated were correctly interpreted, such as “10 or $15” and “100 photos”.
If I had scripted the story, it is possible that the grammar might have been interpreted more “correctly”: our speaking patterns deviate from conventional writing patterns since we often pause to think, combine multiple “sentences” together, repeat ourselves, and other natural habits that come with speech. Voice-to-text technology is attempting to transcribe what it hears quite literally, so if I scripted the story there might have been a greater possibility of proper grammar being reflected in the text. Further, when we read a script, we tend to “rehearse” it, really enunciate words, and pause at commas, semi-colons, and periods to make it clear that there is a grammatical necessity.
In oral storytelling, we tend to rely on the storyteller’s visual and auditory cues for how the story should be interpreted. These include but are not limited to facial expressions, hand gestures, tone of voice, vocal inflections, etc. These attributes implicitly compel us to listen to the story being told in a particular way that reflects the storyteller’s experiences, personality, and even values. Conversely, written storytelling tends to take on a much more “structured” approach, compelling the reader to rely on attributes such as diction (word choice), “flow” of dialogue/sentences/paragraphs, character development, tone, overarching themes, etc. for interpretation.
I would also make the case that oral storytelling is much more flexible for both the storyteller and the listener, in that pauses and run-on sentences are of course permissible and even expected in speech. Alternately, written storytelling commands the storyteller and the reader to have a more structured and logical approach to presenting and interpreting the narrative respectively. Neither of these forms of storytelling are “right” or “wrong”, but simply different: when one engages in storytelling, it is imperative to consider which form is better suited to their story from both the storyteller’s and audience’s perspectives.