I used the iPhone Notes app (voice to text dictation) to tell a story on music composer Franz Schubert below:

“I am a pianist and therefore I really love anecdotes about composers today. I want to tell a story about Schubert Schubert as we know now is a very famous composer, but his time when he was still alive, he had a lot of financial struggles so while he was walking around in Vienna. He was very hungry, but he had no money and then he saw a restaurant and there was a really good aroma coming out of the restaurant, roasted meat bread, and then that made him even hungrier so he walked into the restaurant and then he wanted to he sat at a bacon table and then he ordered some baked potatoes, some food, and he quickly finished his meal, but of course he had no money to pay so what ended up happening is that he gathered the restaurant owner and then he told the owner that instead of paying for his Meal his money he could compose a piece of music luckily the restaurant owner was very interested, and therefore Schubert took and paper and started to compose a waltz, and after he composed it, he went over to the piano and played it and that made everyone very happy. Obviously the restaurant owner included so he was able to pay for his meal his time. She actually wrote a lot of impromptu pieces of music that he kind of just wrote on the spot and this is one of the story. We don’t know if it’s true, but this is a great story of him and his talents, and I was reflecting at the time that his music was kind of underappreciated, and therefore he wasn’t a wealthy composer. But he wrote lots of music in his short lifetime and I think he is one of the best composers that ever lived among us. “

There are many areas in this dictation that would have been much more accurate and coherent if I was writing. In this spoken story, there are many run-on sentences, incorrect grammar, missing punctuations, repeated words. These are just the few examples this dictation deviated from conventions of written English.

What is “Wrong” in the text?

1. Run-on sentences and missing punctuations: The passage contains multiple run-on sentences and missing punctuation marks, which make the text difficult to follow.
2. Inconsistent tense: The passage shifts between past and present tenses, which can confuse the reader. For instance, “Schubert as we know now is a very famous composer” versus “he was walking around in Vienna.”
3. Sentence inaccuracy: Many sentences are awkward and lacks clarity. For example, “he sat at a bacon table” was supposed to be “he sat at a vacant table.”
4. Repetitive and/or redundant Information: The text repeats information unnecessarily, making it cumbersome.
5. Colloquial and informal language: The informal tone and expressions, such as “this is a great story,” are more suitable for spoken language than formal written English.

What is “Right” in the text?

1. Clear intent and narrative: The overall intent and narrative of the passage are understandable. It successfully conveys a story about Schubert and his financial struggles.
2. Engaging story: The story itself is engaging and illustrates an interesting aspect of Schubert’s life.
3. Enthusiastic tone: My passion for the subject matter is evident, which adds a lively tone to the story.

Based on my voice to text story, I think most of the common “Mistakes” in these texts are related to grammar, and what is considered as “proper English”:

1. Run-on sentences: These create confusion and make it hard to distinguish separate ideas.
2. Lack of punctuation: This is somewhat related to the run-on sentences. This affects readability and clarity of the text.
3. Repetitive words or phrases: These do not add value and can be distracting.
4. Inconsistent tense: This can confuse the timeline and disrupt the narrative flow.
5. Informal language: While engaging in spoken storytelling, it can be less effective in written form where a more formal tone is preferred.

If this story is scripted, it will be more structured and polished, written or spoken with proper grammar and syntax, consistent tense, proper punctuation (or breaths!), no repeated content, and with a much more formal tone.

What are the differences between oral and written storytelling? 

I think we have seen plenty of differences between oral and written storytelling above. However, one of the biggest difference between oral and written storytelling to me, as inspired by what Walter Ong (2002) said about computer languages, is that oral language grows out of the unconsciousness, yet when writing a language, much like a computer languages, it grows more out of the consciousness. In writing, thoughts are restructured. It enhances spoken language. It is a transformation of spoken language into something visual, built on top of dictionaries, grammar rules, punctuations into a standard one can look up, study, or read out loud. As Walter Ong (2002) said, though verbal language is powerful, written language brings human consciousness to its full potential.

References 

Ong, W.J. (2002). Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the wordLinks to an external site.. Routledge. (Original work published 1982).