Here is my five minute voice-to-text story using https://speechnotes.co/.

“So this past summer I went on a kayak trip with my partner Tony and our two friends James and Ian. We had originally plans to go on a canoe trip in the bower and lakes area of BC. Unfortunately, because of the fire fire fires that were happening throughout our Province during the summer, we had to cancel that trip. Actually we postponed it until hopefully next summer. So this trip in Northern Vancouver Island was a 5-day 6 nights Excursion that was quite challenging for me to be honest. Both Tony and Ian are quite Adept outdoor enthusiasts whereas myself and James were more in the amateur side. Next line next paragraph we set out from Telegraph Cove on day and we paddle to our first location which was a spot that we decided to stay for two nights the second night that we were there there was another group of kayakers who had a guide with them and they had planned on leaving quite early the following morning when we woke up a couple of hours after their planned departure, they were still there. It turns out that the guide had forgotten to tie up two of their five kayaks and these had shipped. Into the water and we’re lost. We definitely learned a lesson through observing what not to do. After that spot we decided to continue on to another location that we had planned on going to called the whites islets. This place was incredible and we decided to spend two nights there. During all these days we saw tons of humpback whales and a couple of killer whales. In addition we saw bald eagles many seals a couple of sea lions. What was challenging for me on this trip was having to wear a wetsuit during rainy days and in fact I was wearing the white suit the whole time during our kayak Expedition and not being able to have a shower once the smelly wetsuit was removed. We ate quite well and it wasn’t until the last night that we using our Reserve packaged foods that was less tasty than the previous night’s. Another challenge was facing a fear of potentially falling into 8. Celsius open water while traversing a few channels. The last stretch in particular stands out when we returned because a humpback whale could easily flip over one of The Kayaks are both kayaks. All in all I was proud of myself for having embarked on an adventure that most people wouldn’t have guessed that I could have done. Here’s to more Adventures where I force myself to do something out of the blue and challenging.”

• How does the text deviate from conventions of written English?

I use Bluetooth in my car fairly frequently to send messages when I am driving. I appreciate how my car will read back my message and say “Ok, here is your message ______. Ready to send?” so that I can review my message and modify it if needed. This interaction with technology, in particular the software through the speechnotes website, is different from my Bluetooth experience, as I was not allowed to modify my text. The reader is able to see the moments where I stuttered and where I awkwardly attempted to skip a line by saying “next line” and “next paragraph”. The text deviates from written English as recipients of text to speech are lenient (or should be) when spelling mistakes arise, as long as the reader can nevertheless understand the meaning of the phrase. What is exemplified in the text to speech technology is how non-academic and non-professional examples of communications are increasingly shared despite containing mistakes. I frequently send and receive text messages with mistakes and my last text received from my Chris said “Hi love it” followed by “*jk love it”-the asterisk denoting that the previous message included a typo. 

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

The lack of punctuation and the issues with random capitalization are grammatically wrong. At the beginning of my recording, I was careful to dictate punctuation marks by saying “comma” and “period” but the reader can see that as I progressed, these began to disappear. I was increasingly worried, having an internal monologue of “what am I saying?”, “where am I going with this story?” and “has it been five minutes yet?” and I forwent speaking punctuation.

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

After having read C. Haas’ thoughts on writing owing its existence to the material world, what came to mind was how the material representation of thoughts forces an author to be mindful of mistakes. As I type these sentences, I am scouring my brain for the perfect words and phrases and am constantly doubting myself in regards to word choice. In addition, I have also re-read this section many times. As a bilingual person, I have to be mindful to avoid French false friends (words that seem to be the same in both languages but are not). I also have to ensure that I am typing the English form of cognates (for example: example and not exemple, apartment and not appartement). Typing does not allow for the same mistakes that we can make when speaking, and because speech is fleeting, only an undesirable conversationalist would correct you as you speak in your mother tongue. Conversely, judgement on a text with many mistakes would be normal, in my opinion. 

Mistakes in my text include a minimal pair (two words that differ in one sound) when I said “the kayaks or” and the program typed “the kayaks are” and “more on the amateur side” not “in”. Another mistake was with the proper noun “Bowron Lake” and not “bower and lakes”. This mistake is not surprising as I am referencing a specific lake in my province and it would be close to impossible to have recognition software be aware of the pronunciation of proper nouns.  

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

If I had scripted my story, I would not have used the spoken connector “so” (appearing twice at the beginning of my story). Had I not been recorded, I know that I would have used this word more, but I believe I became self-conscious as I was speaking and could see my text on the screen. I use “so” as many anglophones use “um’ or “uh” and after seeing it I began to look away from the screen and worried less about punctuation as a result. My story in script form would have been polished, and frankly, more interesting and I would have given more details about where we stayed and what happened during our kayak expedition. 

• In what ways does oral storytelling differ from written storytelling?
• Oral:
• Time: speaker is spotlighted. All of their mannerisms and mistakes are heard. Temporal: the moment is fleeting (unless being recorded).
• Art / skill: someone telling a good story (whether it be telling a bedtime story or recounting a personal experience) has a gift.
• Problem of memory: repeating a story helps the storyteller’s ability to continue to share it and helps to disseminate it to future generations.
• Written:
• Time: speaker can spend as long as needed to revise the text.
• Temporal: static/ permanent. A “time machine” as Gnanadesikan writes that because of writing, words are “pristinely preserved, as good as new.” (p.1)
• Art / skill: a gifted writer is first and foremost, literate. They should have an extensive vocabulary and being to spell words and conjugate verbs correctly.
• Problem of memory: solved by writing. As explained by Gnanadesikan (2008), when memories become overtaxed, an external storage device is created by writing.

Sources:

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

Haas, C. (2013). “The Technology Question.” In Writing technology: Studies on the materiality of literacy. Routledge. (pp. 3-23).