Translated Story: Relighting an Old Flame               

For Task 3 I told the story of how my husband and I met.  I did not rehearse my story, so the transcript is a first and only draft.  I did this intentionally as I felt this would be the most authentic way to analyze the features of oral and written text, along with the specific qualities of the speech to text translator.

TRANSLATION

For this assignment I decided to tell the story of how I met my husband since it’s a pretty interesting story first of all I actually went to high school with my husband and we were quite good friends and by grade 11 and 12 we became very good friends and spent quite a bit of time together I wouldn’t say we were officially dating but we definitely were close after high school remember this was quite a while ago we lost touch which was he easy to do before there were cell phones and social media years went by Twenty Years actually and I had pretty much lost touch with everyone I graduated with and it happened to be our 20-year reunions are the year of our 20-year so because I wasn’t really active on social media or Facebook I had a private profile making it difficult for anyone to really find me being a teacher I thought this would be a good idea I hadn’t really made contact with any of my classmates leading up to our 20-year anniversary high School graduation anniversary so the get together without me even knowing about it to be honest I wasn’t invited because no one could get a hold of me and I missed that get together well as it turns out literally a week later I happened to be pumping gas right around the corner from my house which is in Langley and keep in mind I went to high school in east Vancouver so this is nowhere near where I went to high school and it was a dark knight a cold night it was raining I had a to con I’m pumping gas and all of a sudden I hear a voice saying Helen is that you and I looked up and it was someone that I graduated with a girl named Julian so she quickly let me know that I just missed the 20-year review because our circles you know don’t really interact although interesting lie when I did meet up with him I realized that he was living literally 1 minute 1 minute. From where I was teaching at the time in Surrey and so that was quite interesting to find out that for for 10 years I had I’ve been teaching just a stone’s throw away from where he was living so anyways to story and I now have this amazing blended family my husband had a child very early actually just after grade 12 and so that shy daughter is and then we have teenagers and then that I have from a previous marriage and then my six-year-old. We’ve had together and we are so blessed and have so much fun together and thank goodness that I have to run into Julian from high school at a gas station in Langley on a stormy Dark Knight and she happen to recognize 

In reflecting on the translation, 4 different topics emerged.

1. Differences between the text as a scripted story and the translation.

As I have already mentioned, I did not rehearse telling this story at all.  I wanted to be able to fully appreciate the differences between this version and a scripted story.  I found the differences to be quite revealing.  First, I was a bit disappointed in my storytelling!  Without a chance to write a script I wasn’t able to fully capture the emotions I associate with this story.  I actually missed the whole part of the story where after running into Jillian (not Julian) I added myself to my high school facebook group and this is how I reconnected with my husband.  If I had more time to create a script, I would have provided a more detailed story and added more descriptive language in order to create a more compelling description of how we reconnected.  In reflecting on this, however, I’m not sure if this is due to my own lack of practice in storytelling or a difference between speech (as represented by the transcript) and text.  When I think of cultures where storytelling is an important tradition, they use their craft to communicate in a descriptive way that can incite strong emotions in the listener.   In this example my poor storytelling is possibly an example of the cultural impacts on speech.  Since storytelling is not something I’m used to there is likely a much greater difference between my translation and scripted text.  The other thought I had is that perhaps the story becomes more authentic since I didn’t rehearse or script the resulting text.  For instance, some of the narrative comment I likely wouldn’t have included in a polished, scripted story.  So while not overly descriptive, my translation is an authentic telling of the story of how my husband and I met (again).

2. Specific differences in the translation when compared to what was said. 

I was fairly impressed by the overall accuracy of the speech to text software.  I used Speechnotes to translate my story into text.  There were only a few errors, if an error is defined as an actual mistake where the intended meaning is not communicated properly.  For instance, the word toque was translated as to, that’s my as that’s shy and interestingly as interesting lie.  Overall, however, there were a limited number of these types of mistakes.

What I did find was an enormous deviation from the conventions of written English.  Since I did not dictate punctuation, the transcript is basically one long run-on sentence, with a couple of periods thrown in likely when I paused.  Interestingly, I realize this might reveal why run-on sentences are one of the most common errors in students writing.  Students seem to put thoughts on paper much like a story they would tell, rather than a carefully crafted written document.  As a result, their written work often resembles my transcript…filled with run-on sentences!  I think it would be a great exercise to have students complete this task as an activity in class as way of highlighting the difference between the text in their mind and the grammatical conventions of written English.  I also noticed that at times the lack of punctuation makes parts of the story difficult to understand.  Without the pauses and gestures that are afforded storytellers, ideas in the translated text seem to run into each other.

I also noticed the translation failed to capture the narrative comments that are common to storytelling.  It reminded me of reading one of Shakespeare’s soliloquies (rather than watching a performance) without the written notation that indicates which comments are an aside and being directed at the audience and not the character on the stage.  For instance, in my transcript I have comments like “remember this was quite a while ago” or, “being a teacher I thought this would be a good idea.”  In these narrations I deviate from the story to talk directly to an audience that doesn’t even exist, which I found interesting but also difficult to for the translation to properly capture.

3. The materiality of written language. 

In taking my story and using technology to create a text version I was reminded of the notion of the materiality of written language (Hass, 1996).  By creating a permanent record of the story of how my husband and I met, I have added a record to our family history.  This is an important distinction between oral and written language.  While oral language can clearly be used to pass down history, it is dependent on others to continue to pass down as an oral tradition. While this exists as a difference between speech and text, the readings this week made it clear that it is impractical to view speech and text as dichotomous.  The transcript of my oral telling is evidence that supports Scibner and Cole’s (1981) assertion that writing is not just decontextualized speech, a concept discussed in detail in the Hass (1996) selection.  A written version of this story would have similarities and differences from the translated story (an example of speech), but would be inextricably linked as they are both means of communication.  Their differences are an opportunity to study the unique features of text and speech.

4. Implications for considering the impact of technology. 

Finally, recognizing the contextualized nature of speech and text is key to avoiding an “instrumental view of technology” (Hass, 1996, p.21).  By acknowledging that context matters, one is also accepting that technology matters, as it may provide the context for creating and communicating speech or text.  With this comes a recognition that technology is absolutely not just a tool, and is influenced by multiple factors like culture, values, audience, and purpose.  This could apply to the content of my story, for instance I might not be so willing to share this story in a society less accepting of blended families.  It is also evident in the translation itself, for instance the capitalization of Dark Knight due to this being a popular film.  These cultural constructs influence both speech and text and are thus important to consider.

Overall I found this an intriguing activity, as a simple translation of the story of how I met my husband revealed a variety of interesting qualities of text and speech.

References

Haas, C. (1996). Writing Technology.  New York: Routledge.

Scribner, S. & Cole M. (1981).  The Psychology of Literacy.  Cambridge: Harvard University Press.