“… the minister finally believes Tumblr and telling the truth so yeah EDM Dumbledore Ryback seems okay…”
I texted Binal (we know each other outside of this program) that this was my favourite line in her voice-to-text assignment by far: anytime you get to mix a minister, Tumblr, Electronic Dance Music, Dumbledore, and pro wrestler Ryback together it’s going to be a party! I knew from talking to her that she thought her voice-to-text made no sense: “It is not easy to read and definitely makes no sense at all.” And yet I found I could follow the narrative fairly well. But I attribute that to my historical knowledge; I have read the Harry Potter series several times (as has Binal, naturally) so, even with the grammatical missteps and weird interpretations of Binal’s narrative, it’s possible to eke the story out. I do think this outcome would be completely different for someone who had no prior knowledge of the stories, and shows the importance of historical knowledge when it comes to “passing down” oral traditions. Sure, the story may change from speaker to speaker (just play a game of telephone with 5 of your favourite friends) but as long as people have the historical background they will be able to understand the message. It is why some people understand Shakespearian theatre and others look on it as another language.
Going back to my favourite line: I found it really remarkable how the technology Binal used easily recognized, or came up with, such modern Pop culture words and phrases. I used the speech to text right in Microsoft Word and it could not recognize my last name (Patton is sort of famous in US second world war circles… at least I get asked at the border a lot if I’m related to the general), yet Binal’s software knew almost all the Harry Potter references and a plethora of other ones. It showed me the disparity between programs and that, as in most things, you need to research on which software to use when implementing it in a setting like a classroom where Pop references would definitely benefit the students.
Finally, Binal states, “While oral stories may be wonderfully immersive in their right, without the written word they may not (will not) live forever.” Though technically true, there is another option: recording. Technology has made the idea of recording oral traditions and languages such an attainable goal now as each handheld phone can record on the spot. We need to start a library of oral stories just we have for written ones, so that they can be part of future generations’ historical knowledge.
Binal’s Voice-To-Text Assignment