This narrative was created using the text-to-speech Whisper app, which allows one free transcription but does not allow you to so much as copy the text without purchase, which meant I had to retype my narrative.
What is the right way to conduct oneself on escalators in the Hong Kong MTR? I met a colleague on the platform at Wong Chuk Hong. We were both going to the same place in central and we moved to the escalators to get out. And there was this great bottleneck of people all waiting their turn to get on the escalator at the right hand side according to convention. Leaving the left hand side unobstructed for people who want to walk up the escalator. And I am bemused by this congestion created because I wonder why everyone wouldn’t just walk up the escalator all the time and would willingly submit to standing and waiting and milling about in order to get on at the right hand side. My colleague shares my amusement but gave a tweak to my philosophy by advocating for everyone to stand on the escalator. She got on the escalator and stood next to me on the left hand side and at one point looked behind her to see if anyone was coming up behind. She was a moment of self-consciousness but more so of defiance as though she was militating for a kind of new approach. And she explained this to me as if everyone simply moved to both sides and stood on both sides there would be this prevention of this congestion. So the fundamental difference in her approach was that I agree with the current system that the left hand side should be maintained free. The difference she believes that the left hand side should always be filled by people standing. I believe that the left hand side should always be maintained free if people are not going to be more go-getters and walk up the escalator. She further justified her system by saying that expressing disbelief that anyone could be in such a rush that they needed implying that they didn’t need to walk up the escalator. I’ve been in situations where I’ve confronted a person standing on the left hand side and I’ve actually just pushed through them, which often blesses a reaction of disbelief from the person I’m pushing to the side, but such as my own militancy about the rights of the person to move unencumbered up the left hand side.
For my analysis, I will proceed through my text-to-speech conversion bit by bit, noting linguistic and structural features as they appear in the text. This approach allows me to track how oral storytelling patterns emerge and differ from conventional written narrative.
The only predetermined part was the opening question, a common storytelling device used to generate interest and establish the theme of the story.
The narrative contains an abrupt temporal jump – we meet on the platform at Wong Chuk Hang, and suddenly we’re at the escalators after completing our journey. A written story would smooth out this transition, perhaps by describing the journey or using a clear transitional phrase.
The phrase ‘according to convention’ is inserted rather abruptly, yet its formality serves a dual purpose: it creates a sense of shared knowledge for local readers familiar with escalator etiquette, while potentially intriguing readers from less congested regions who might be unfamiliar with such rigid social conventions.
The transcription includes a sentence fragment: ‘Leaving the left hand side unobstructed…’ This illustrates advice I often give to students – that starting sentences with ‘ing’ words often creates problems. Such constructions need to either connect to the previous sentence as a subordinate clause or be rephrased entirely.
The statement ‘I am bemused’ describes my general, ongoing state of mind – it’s how I always feel about this situation. Similarly, when I write ‘My colleague shares my amusement,’ it could be read as another general truth, parallel to my own permanent bemusement. However, what I’m actually trying to convey is something I discovered during our specific conversation, which becomes clearer in the next part: ‘gave a tweak to my philosophy.’ This shift to past tense reveals that I’m describing something learned in a specific moment, not a general truth about my colleague’s perspective. This mixing of tenses – from what could be read as general truths in present tense to a specific conversational revelation in past tense – is more characteristic of spoken expression, where we naturally flow between timeframes as our thoughts unfold, than of written expression, which typically maintains more consistent temporal framing within a single sentence.
The description of my colleague’s actions on the escalator would be handled quite differently in written form. A written version might read: “As my colleague expounded on her philosophy about the need to fill up both sides of the escalator, she looked back defiantly, as though ready to confront anyone who dared insinuate that they were expecting her to move aside…”
The phrase “She was a moment of self-consciousness” demonstrates how natural speech often produces incomplete or grammatically awkward constructions that would be refined in writing. In a written version, this might have been expressed as “she was displaying a moment of self-consciousness” or “this was a moment of self-consciousness on her part.” This illustrates how spoken language often contains these rough edges that written language would smooth out.
The phrase ‘So the fundamental difference in her approach was that I agree’ exemplifies how spoken language often expresses comparisons awkwardly. Written language would favour parallel structure: ‘While we both agree that the congestion is problematic, we differ in our solutions: I believe everyone should walk up the escalator to create better flow, while she believes no one should walk up the escalator at all.’ This demonstrates how written language can achieve clarity through careful structuring, while oral storytelling, though effective in conveying meaning, often takes a less elegant path.
The phrase “more go-getters” exemplifies informal spoken language that would be inappropriate in formal writing.
There’s a clear instance of self-repair, a characteristic feature of spontaneous speech, where I begin with “She further justified her system by saying that…” then switch to “expressing disbelief.” This happened because I wanted to use the word “disbelief” but had to adjust my syntactic structure to accommodate it – “expressing” better collocates with “disbelief” than “saying” does.
The voice-to-text transcription was remarkably accurate, with only minor errors. It transcribed “elicits” as “blesses” and “such is” as “such as” – the latter presumably because “such as” is a more common pattern in English than the somewhat pretentious “such is.”
Interestingly, the Whisper app adds punctuation such as full stops, which are constructs of written language. In oral speech, there are rarely clear indicators of where “punctuation” should go – we rely instead on pauses, intonation, and rhythm. The app’s automatic addition of punctuation represents an attempt to bridge the gap between spoken and written conventions.
This analysis reveals how oral storytelling differs fundamentally from written narrative in its handling of time, perspective, and grammatical structures, while still managing to convey meaning effectively through different means.
