Below is my 5 minute long story that I produced using Office Dictation in Microsoft Word. I decided to dictate a story about my summer adventures.

This summer was spent with adventures and memories due to being stuck in another Covid summer we were unable to travel internationally so we had to stay local and travel within British Columbia and that was OK because we were still able to enjoy our beautiful province the first trip that I went on with two of my friends was going to the hobbit house which is what I like to call it on Airbnb they actually had to change the name due to copyright reasons and it is now called second breakfast hideaway so this location is about 30 minutes east of us so use in a city called brides Ville when we drove up to it or we could see was a little mountain and we were shocked because we saw that that was where we were going to stay that was the hobbit house it was a mound not a mountain but a mound of earth that was a home if you’ve ever read Lord of the rings this would be a place that you would want to come to to experience it had the theme of lord of the rings all throughout it as we were there we explored a saw use and enjoy the lake life in the day and at night we would be at the hobbit house looking up at all the stars with hundreds of crickets in the background we stayed here for about a week for the experience I would definitely recommend it once we came back Home to Vancouver it was my dad’s birthday so I decided to rent a couple of the bikes so that we could go on a brewery tour. He absolutely loved it our next trip was back up to a saw use where we stayed at Spirit Ridge at ink Met resort our first full day there was amazing we spent time at the lake had a picnic then we went to the resort to go to the pool and hot tub and enjoy dinner in our room while overlooking the Vineyard the next day we spent the whole day at the lake however around 2 PM we start to see smoke in the sky and all of these water helicopters dropping water onto a fire that was close by around 7 o’clock we went back to our hotel which was out of power due to the whole town of a soy use shutting down their power there was a fire and it was coming closer to us we could see it from our room but we didn’t panic because we knew if we had to get out of this resort they would let us know we kept on watching the fire grow from our window we decided to pack up all of our things just in case we had to get evacuated at 6 o’clock in the morning the phone rang and it was the front Dess telling us that we had to pack our things and evacuate as soon as possible moments later we had the RCMP knocking on our door telling us to evacuate because the fire was getting closer we packed up so fast and fled because we didn’t want to get stuck even though our adventure ended we were sad that the fire was destroying this beautiful land since we all had vacation days left we decided to go to Harrison for a night and ended up kayaking the next day which was beautiful however the Wind was kicking up which made kayaking pretty rough as if we were in the middle of an ocean we then left Harrison and decided to go to Nanaimo because that’s where my best friend lives we explored Nanaimo for about three days it’s funny because then I’m always a city I always pass through and I never explored it however I was able to explore it now and it was spectacular who knew then I came back home to Vancouver for about a week of rest and then decided to go up to Pemberton where we stayed on a farm where we could see the mountains and enjoy a hot tub cold bath and sauna and form animals it was absolutely magical however at night the mosquitoes will attack that was the only downfall of that trip after spending a couple of nights in Pemberton we then went to Whistler to spend a couple of nights there we had a hot tub on the deck of the place we were staying at so we were able to relax as much as we could we even explored Lumena in Whistler which is basically like a light show in the forest we also got to experience the great toad migration we’re all these little toads were everywhere around this one park at Whistler then went back home to Vancouver for a couple of days and then decided to go to Mayne Island where we stayed in a Cobb cottage that had sheep and chickens that would greet you every morning we explored the whole island and it is by far my favourite island that I’ve been to when we were there we got to experience bioluminescence in the water at night every night so you would have sparkles in the water and then you to look up at the stars and it happened to be a meteor shower that night and while we were there so wow it was amazing after coming back from Mayne Island arrested at home for a couple of days and then was at it again I ended up going to Union Bay which is between Parksville and Courtney on the island and we stayed at a beach house so we were right on the beach it was a family vacation one of the days when we were there we decided to hop on the little ferry to go to Denman Island and then over to Hornby Island I really wanted to go to Hornby Island because they say that this one beach which is tribune bay beach is like a little Hawaii so I knew I just had to go it was absolutely gorgeous we also took drives up to Comox and Courtney to explore and of course we couldn’t miss going to goats on the roof in Coombs after this trip we decided to go over to Tofino for a couple of days where we stayed at McKenzie beach and sunsets we’re absolutely breathtaking then of course after this trip it was time to end our fun adventure summer so we headed back home to Vancouver and had a good nights sleep just in time for work the next day 

How does the text deviate from conventions of written English?

While I write my papers, I will sometimes use dictation so I have learned to say “period,” “comma,” and any other punctuation. However this time I did not say which punctuation to use as I wanted to talk naturally as if it were with a friend. The text deviated from conventions of written English as there is no punctuation. There are no sentences and it is just words spewed onto the paper causing one very long run-on sentence. There are also grammatical errors such as capitalization, possessions, spelling, paragraphing and some words were incorrect as they were butchered into a group of other small words. As well, there is no expression that is represented in this story as I did not say “exclamation mark.”

What is “wrong” in the text? What is “right”?

For the most part, most of the words were correct. I was surprised at how many words were correctly written as I am sick currently and my voice is altered so I was expecting there to be many errors. I suppose I speak decently clearly and do not mumble as almost all of my words were correct, aside from a few. I teach at a high ELL populated school so I find that I tend to speak clearly and slowly so that they are able to pick up what I am saying. I was considering this in the back of my mind when I started to use the dictation. I wanted to make sure that I was clear and concise so that the computer would be able to understand me. There are, however, some words that were replaced with other like-sounding words making them the wrong words, such as:

– us so use, a saw use, and a soy use were used instead of “Osoyoos”

– the bikes instead of “e-bikes”

– ink Met instead of “Nk’Mip”

– Dess instead of “desk”

– then I’m instead of “that is”

– form animals instead of “farm animals”

– Lumena instead of “Lumina”

– arrested instead of “and rested”

What are the most common “mistakes” in the text and why do you consider them “mistakes”?

As I mentioned in the first question, the most common mistakes were punctuation and grammatical errors. They are mistakes only because when the speech is put into written text, it is then read differently and may be hard to read. The lack of punctuation is due to the fact that the dictation does not pick up on any pauses or stops that are used in the oral language which would indicate a comma or a period in the written output. There are some words that were misrepresented as they are not the words that were intended to be written out. Ultimately, without punctuation, it does make this story hard to read and understand as you do not know where the sentence should start or finish, or if one idea relates to another.

What if you had “scripted” the story? What difference might that have made?

If I had scripted the story, I think that would have allowed me to add in everything I would have liked to have said. I may have been carried away as I wanted to finish talking about my summer but I was also talking a bit faster than normal to make sure I could mention everything. I also found myself getting nervous as I would pause for a moment to think about what else I wanted to add, so occasionally the dictation would then turn off if there was no voice being picked up. If the story was scripted, I would have been able to do exactly five minutes by adding everything that I thought was essential for this story. 

In what ways does oral storytelling differ from written storytelling? 

Oral storytelling is storytelling that is done in a flexible, causal way where it can be performative and spontaneous. The oral storyteller does not need to worry about making mistakes or spelling words incorrectly. It is about going off of your audience’s reaction while interacting with someone so that you can adjust your story if need be. 

Written storytelling on the other hand is more structured and needs to be grammatically correct

The difference of oral storytelling compared to written storytelling is like what Gnanadesikan (2011) mentions when she states that “writing takes words and turns them into objects, visible or tangible” where they can be “examined, analyzed, and dissected” (p. 4). Whereas oral storytelling “unfolds in time, one word replacing the previous one” just like the telephone game example Gnasnadesikan (2011) shares where messages tend to be different by the time the last person has heard the phrase (p. 3). 

References 

Gnanadesikan, A. E. (2011).The First IT Revolution. In The writing revolution: Cuneiform to the interne. (Vol. 25). John Wiley & Sons (pp. 1-10).