Photo 1: October 2013 – My wife (girlfriend back then) as carefree students
Photo 2: July 2016 – A bit more grown up together as young adults

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Unscripted written text:

So the unscripted story that I wanted to share with you is How I Met my wife we both met at University of Toronto where she is from Vancouver and I am from Ottawa we were both starting the same program so there was ample opportunity for us to meet together but we first met at a joint University club at this club I first met her as a brand new student as I am when you’re older but it wasn’t the typical love at first sight as Hollywood would portray it certainly wasn’t any like jaw dropping or heart beating out of my chest it was certainly a fatal attraction but I wanted to see her certainly a friend and get to know her better but it wasn’t really like that Hollywood kind of crazy affection sort of thing so after a number of projects that we worked on together for our University School club so we coordinated a graduation ceremony for our graduating students as well as arranging welcome parties I could say for our brand new students it was a great opportunity for us to see how we collaborated but also built teamwork together it was during this time that a lot of our friends in addition to me we like I noticed how how well we got along together and it was this spark that eventually led us closer together near the end of our graduation where we after we were officially together for about 2-3 years there came a critical point for us to decide whether to stay in Toronto or to move to Vancouver or to really decide if our relationship was to stay together that was a difficult point as obviously my home family is from Ottawa ON and her whole family is from Vancouver BC we decided to give it a try in which as soon as we would graduate my wife would return back to Vancouver to attend nursing college for another four years and I would stay in Toronto for one year to pursue my teaching degree during this one year long distance as everyone would say long distance was really really hard we certainly went through ups and downs and there almost came a point in which we decided that it was too difficult there wasn’t really much opportunity for for us to kind of continue together however we we pursued it through and it came as a point for me to really kind of consider you know can I give in cooperman try much against the wishes of my parents I I decided to really you know buy a one way ticket fly to Vancouver in pursuit of a summer job in which then I would try my best to work on transferring all my teacher accreditations and hopefully find a place here in Vancouver and it was through that process in which I know I really kind of did everything and anything to kind of prove my parents wrong and make the relationship work so I did pretty much everything I worked at the graveyard shift at a dormitory school in which you know I would end my day at 2:00 AM and and and then head home and kind of sleep I kind of like you know the afternoon of the next day and then repeat the whole process but I again my driving force was that I really wanted to make our relationship work while you know second motivation listed prove my parents role in the end I think my wife but then again back then she was not my wife but my wife and I worked together we collaborated together we practiced for introduced together and it was it was through her endless support that I was able to eventually you know secure teaching position and I kept working hard everything in anything to really get to the point where I am today and after you know securing my very first kind of full time job I then proposed to her on that sports field just as a testament of thanking her for all that she’s done for me and how grateful i am that everything worked out the way that it was melting

Identification and Analysis

The program that I used for this voice-to-text assignment was the dictation function in Microsoft Word. I was inspired to use this particular program as several of my students use this feature for their assessments, and to empathize with my colleagues who support them by scribing and editing of their final work. In a frustrating sense, the written text deviates significantly from English conventions. I did my best to minimize my environment’s noise by recording in a closed off room and attaching a wearable microphone. I found that significant differences between oral and written language occur with the tempo/rhythm, silence, and filler words. With oral language, the tempo/rhythm creates an ebb and flow to enrapture the attention of the listener; a quickening of pace communicates an energy whereas the slowing of pace communicates a conclusion. For written text, the tempo is determined by the reader; although the pace of reading can become faster when things become exciting, this may not be the original intent of the story that the author intended. Silence is the second deviation. As I would in sharing an oral story, a pause or silence allows for the digestion of the sound before; much like how music utilizes the power of silence to elevate its impact of sound. With written text, silence is decided by its reader, and thus the impact of its prior words may lose its weight. Finally, the final deviation is filler words. Fillers, or hesitation markers, serve to allow the speaker time to organize thoughts in the middle of an oral sentence. In a social conversation, fillers are naturally given less weight and value to the story; such as ‘like’, ‘um’ and ‘yeah’, etc. However, with written text, as all words are seen as the same value, fillers are confusedly elevated to be important which is opposite to its use in oral language.

As I re-read the written text, it is hardly coherent; the voice-to-text program did not include any form of punctuation such as periods, commas, or anything that would separate my train of thought. My text thus reads as a giant string of an immensely-long run-on sentence. When I tried the program again, punctuation IS possible but I need to distinctly say “comma”, or “period” to inform the program that this is the break in the sentence. I imagine how frustrating this would be if a student were using this program to explain how to write a sentence in English, or the cycle of waves or the monthly biological cycles of the female reproductive system. Surprisingly, numbers came out correctly; the program was able to differentiate numbers in time and numbers in non-time formats, such as 2AM and one year. It was also able to identify geography well; Toronto, Vancouver, and Ottawa were all corrected identified as locations and given the right capitalization. I recall using ‘Ontario’ as the term to follow Ottawa, which the program simplified to just ‘ON’. Several words came out incorrectly; ‘Cooperman’ is an unknown word which I have difficulty recall even saying anything similar! Likewise, I ended my story with ‘meant to be’, but perhaps due to the lowering volume of my voice and decreasing tempo which would signify coming to a conclusion, the program decided to go with ‘melting’.

The most common mistakes were punctuation. In an oral story, punctuation is inherently included through the use of pauses, inflections, and rhythms of the voice. With this particular voice-to-text program, such punctuation was undetected, thus leaving a bewildered reader in identifying where a thought begins and ends. In oral communication, the speaker’s words phrase a message that is meant to be understood. However, when its translation fails in framing the correct structure, that message is lost. For me, my unscripted story unfortunately would be a large ‘mistake’ as individual mistakes are indecipherable due to the lack of sentence structure.

With a script, I would have had a guide for my thoughts so I would not stray too far on tangents or feel the need to use fillers. In addition to knowing how the program works, I would need to include words to dictate punctuation; an obvious interruption into the natural flow of the oral story but it would be required if I used the same program again. The difference would be substantial; my written story of how I met my wife would be immortalized and it would be comprehensible to any reader. The oral version, however, would be unpleasant to listen to.

Oral storytelling has excitement, flair, and energy to accompany its content. Even as I wrote the description in the sentence before, I included body language as if I was saying it out loud! I recall when I was in elementary school, I wrote out sentences such as “NOOOOOO!!!!” and “POWERRRRRRRRR!!!!” in an effort to communicate the feelings and context that the character was feeling. My teacher was unimpressed; too many report cards went home saying that I had to learn to write more professionally, and thus, dim it down so I would use less capital letters and misspelled words. But it is precisely that difference that separates the oral and written language! The oral form of storytelling captivates its audience through the speaker’s combined use of body language, energy, volume, inflection, tempo and rhythm. In contrast, the written form of storytelling allows the imagination of the reader to be in control of everything, starting with the tempo, pauses, volume, and even, stopping right then and there to prevent knowing how the story ends.