My Story:
So this is the story how I adopt my cat milky this and last year August I don’t remember the exact date, but I remember it was a hot summer day cuz I plan to play volleyball with my friends that afternoon and I was late. I wasn’t plan to adopt my cat. I got an email in the morning saying there’s a huge adopt event happening in the past Martin lonely and it totally call me I guess I didn’t know it was happening. But I decided to go because I was thinking about getting a cat for I would say probably a few months by then so I decided to go and see all the kittens and they were offering that day. So I went there and I found this little section. Set up for adoption there was a line and I waited in a line up and I could see people you know getting excited about adopting you kittens kids with their parents and they were carrying I guess new kid has they just adopted and the kids were really excited and that got me excited too. So I walked in the station and the whole Space is surrounded by cages and Aang the cages there the kid is some kittens were put together and there’s an old saying that it would be recommended to adopt them together. I walk around there was a kitten that actually caught my eye I really want take him home but the stuff work there told me that since I wasn’t approved for my adoption I need it to wait there for an interview so I went to a nearby McDonald to wait when I came back it was already 50 50 minutes later and the kitten. I initially had my eye on with already. Someone else I was deaf little bit but they brought out new kittens and I was still waiting for my interview and I started to interact with the kid as they had there. And there was a little kitchen I was just trying to snuggle his head under my hand is just basically trying to put his head through like the little gap between the cages and trying to get my attention and I found an instant found was just kitchen and you know how people say like you know the Pats choose the owner I guess that’s what happened and there I took the kid a whole I named him milky and we’ve been living together happily for almost a year i’m really grateful that I went to the shelter event that day.
Observations:
I used Speechnotes for this activity and this is the first time I used this digital tool to dictate oral storytelling.
The first thing that I noticed from this written text of my story is that the punctuations are not where they are supposed to be compared to the standard conventions of written English, which made reading the text somewhat difficult. Even though there are clear instructions on the three ways to insert punctuation on the web page as soon as visitors get on the site, it feels weird to have to think about “period” or “comma” in the middle of telling a story. In the beginning I was trying to include them, but it soon became too distracting. That is when I decided not to think about the punctuation at all and just focused on the story. It stands out to me that when people speak the language, whether telling a story or having a conversation with someone, they do not consider using punctuation to deliver meanings or make themselves clear. At the same time, the listeners do not rely on punctuation to understand the piece of information as much as they do when reading written text. Therefore, to me, punctuation is something unique to the writing system so human brains can process written text easier without the natural flow of speaking language.
As I read through the text version of my storytelling, I noticed that around 90% of the words were correctly dictated. There are three main types of mistakes: dictation mistakes, grammar mistakes, and missing words. For instance, the tool dictated the word “kittens” to “kids”, “Petsmart Langley” to “Pest Martin lonely”, and “bound” to “found”. Some verbs that should have been in past tense were dictated to present tense. Some conjunctions were missing. The sentence “I was definitely a little bit disappointed” became “I was deaf little bit”. I consider them as “mistakes” because some disrupt the structure of the written text, and others leave the sentence incomplete and confusing to understand. If I had scripted the story, I believe that the grammar mistakes could have been avoided. I would also consider word choices and use different types of sentences to make the story more detailed and intriguing.
It struck me how oral storytelling is different from written storytelling. Oral storytelling pays more attention to meaning delivery rather than the form of language. Oral storytellers also have tools, including but not limited to tone, facial expressions, and gestures, to convey feelings and emotions. It reflects the speakers’ thoughts in a more direct, non-filtered way since there is less time for them to ponder their word choices and sentences. Listeners can ask questions on the spot if the meaning is unclear. Written storytelling, on the other hand, requires more accurate forms so readers can clearly grasp the meaning without those extra tools. Word choices, sentence structures, and punctuation become important because they affect the reader’s understanding of the text. Written storytelling is more carefully planned and articulated so the message being delivered does not get misunderstood (however, interpretation is up to individuals and it is the same with oral storytelling). Oral storytelling, if not dictated or recorded, only stays in the memory of the speakers and listeners, and the story could be altered, revised, or lost due to how human memory works. It can be told by the storyteller many times and becomes different each time. Written storytelling lasts longer on the paper/in the document and would never change unless edited, rewritten, erased, or deleted.
Hi Trista,
It’s great to see you again in another course 🙂 I love that you shared your story about adopting your cat! You brought up a great point of the differences among oral and written storytelling. I agree that written storytelling requires much more planning and organization especially since we don’t get the verbal communication like we do with oral storytelling. I noticed through this assignment that if I shared my story to someone via orally, they would easily understand it through verbal cues. However, if they were to read my voice to text paragraph, they would be very confused as a lot of detail is not included within the text. In written storytelling, in order for the reader to understand what the author is trying to illustrate, much more detail has to be included such as setting, people, background knowledge, mood, tone, etc.
Thanks for sharing!
Hi Emily,
It is so nice to see you in another course again! Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I totally agree with you that in order for written story to be understood clearly, more planning and details needed to be included due to the lack of communication and context that oral storytelling provides naturally.
Hey Trista, I agree with your point you made about pausing to include punctuation being a distraction. I too was unsure whether or not I should include it in my speech but decided not to as I assumed the app would automatically include it. It turns out it didn’t. But I think if I had done so as you had initially, this would cause me to forget what I was talking about and perhaps take away from the creative flow of oral storytelling.
Hi Alexis,
Yes I feel the same way. It really shows how our thoughts naturally flow without punctuation and how our brains process things we hear in speech differently when we read written context.
Hello Trista,
I thought what you said about punctuation was really interesting and insightful!
I resonate with what you say about when we speak, we have so many other “tools” we can lean on to make what we mean clear — facial expressions, intonation, gestures, etc. One can tell that a sentence is a question by the rising tone at the end, or that someone is excited by perhaps their accelerated speed and heightened enthusiasm in their voice. “Punctuation is something unique to the writing system so human brains can process written text easier without the natural flow of speaking language”, it made me think about making all the “integrated information” in speech apparent and visual, such that the reader of the text can understand and process it “as if” it were spoken in a natural flow.
–Sophy
Hi Sophy,
Thank you for sharing your ideas. I think your idea of making the speech apparent and visual is very interesting because I do think that a lot authors are doing so, especially in novels. It makes me start to think about the difference between narrative and dialogue in literature since they are both written context.
Hi Trista!
I found your post particularly interesting because I also found an issue with having to voice, “period” or “comma” with my OneNote speech device. I found that I too was distracted and lost track of my story or what I wanted to say next. I also notice a significant difference with your experience compared to mine. Whenever I casually said “’cause” instead of “because”, it spelled it correctly with an apostrophe. I am interested why your dictation tool spelled it as “cuz”, which is also another appropriate colloquial way to spell it.
Did you find it awkward to record yourself with an unscripted story? I noticed that because I was alone and not speaking to someone else, it felt like it lost its magic spark… no one to ask me questions to delve deeper into the story, no laughter at the funny parts, but rather isolating and a loss of social integration.
Hi Junel,
You raised an interesting point of how different tools dictate voice with different spelling. It makes me questions that is it necessary to have correct, standard spelling for oral dictation and whether a standard for dictation is needed.
I actually found it very awkward to tell a story to the laptop. It did not feel like natural conversation at all and I noticed myself pause many times to think about what to say next. I totally felt the isolation and the difference of having an audience or not really affects the storytelling.