| The Story of Emma’s Birth:
So this is a story of the day that my daughter Emma was born, which was October 27 and it was definitely one to remember it was in the mid morning and we just woken up or actually my wife had already woken up earlier and then I got up my wife came to me and said that she thought her water might be broken. It wasn’t like in the movies though where I got a water came out. We actually weren’t sure if it had actually happened and we waited for a while and google to see what we should do Waited up having breakfast and then we decided to go to the hospital. This is when we scramble to get things together. Our hospital bag was mostly packed, but we were worried that we might have forgotten something remember carrying out so much stuff to the car that I wasn’t sure we would need to drive to the hospital wasn’t too long, but I felt like it took forever when we got there the nurses were really good like they were calm and kind and they just walked through us through everything like it was no big deal even though I I’ll teach to us we eventually saw a Doctor Who checked my wife and say that her water had indeed broken that our baby will be coming today we were just in total shock and not sure what to do at this point, but I guess that choice had already been made for us. It was a crazy feeling, knowing that our daughter would be there that day the Earth itself. It’s hard to describe you’re tired right on adrenaline and suddenly there was a tiny person in the room with you. It’s a surreal And the Doctor Who delivered our baby asked if I wanted to cut umbilical cord to which I said yes, the cord was a lot tougher or harder to cut, and I thought it was kind of rubbery and then the real learning started we went to a recovery room where we held our daughter for the first time she was still sleeping and had it started crying much but I would change soon The first night. Oh it was rough. Neither of us slept much. I didn’t sleep much either and woke up every two hours ago sometimes it was more like every 30 minutes to eat, and I realize that I had no clue of how to do half the things I just assumed that figure out changing the diaper for the first time. Let’s just say, I didn’t realize how quickly things can escalate. There was a Full on poop explosion at one point like everywhere and the poop is as thick blocked our like substance that is super hard to clean so that’s something I had to figure out in the moment and bottle feeding yeah that was another state learning curve. The nurses were so patient, though they asked us exactly what to do even when I was fumbling around, trying to get it right and although we didn’t bottle fee to start because Emma can only take small amount of food, we use syringes with formula to put in her mouth when we got home, we had to get my grandma to come over to help for the first night and honestly, I don’t know what we would’ve done without her. She watched Emma overnight so that we could finally get some sleep and I think we only slept 6 to 7 hours over the previous four days combined my mom also came over and help a lot, which is very needed in the early weeks and then closer to Christmas my wife’s mom flew in from Japan for 10 days having her here was just so special she cooked for us and helped to watch Emma so that we could take some personal time like going out to eat for the first time in the restaurant since our daughter was born and it was really amazing to see her meet Emma for the first time too looking back now it’s kind of a blur, lotta sleepless nights a lot of learning as we went but also those little moments are sick with me like holding Emma for the first time and something I’ll never forget today. Emma is 2 1/2 months old and has already changed and grown so much senior smile for the first time was amazing. I can’t wait to see her grow up more as well. |
| How does the text deviate from conventions of written English? What is “wrong” in the text? What is “right”?
When I checked the results of my transcribed story (created via speech-to-text on my iPhone), the first thing I noticed was the significant limitations of the available technology. The text contained numerous run-on sentences and missing punctuation that I would typically correct if I were writing the story instead of dictating it. For example, the sentence: “So this is a story of the day that my daughter Emma was born, which was October 27 and it was definitely one to remember it was in the mid morning and we just woken up or actually my wife had already woken up earlier and then I got up my wife came to me and said that she thought her water might be broken” lacks proper punctuation and structure, making it difficult to follow. The lack of formatting (i.e. paragraphs) also affects the reading of the text, where it is challenging to see when the story transitions to a new topic or event. Additionally, there were transcription errors where the technology misinterpreted my words. For instance:
These errors obscured the intended meaning of my story, and broke the aforementioned conventions of written English. This experience also helped me to understand why many of my students in the past have become frustrated when using this technology in the classroom. Despite these issues, there are a couple aspects of the text that I think work well. The transcription captured the personal (and colourful) expressions of my oral storytelling, such as describing a “full-on poop explosion.” Additionally, descriptions such as “the cord was a lot tougher or harder to cut, and I thought it was kind of rubbery,” mirrors how I searched for the right words in real time. Ultimately, however, the transcribed text highlights the challenges of directly translating spoken language into written form. Speech-to-text technology struggles to convey tone, cadence, and nuance, which can affect how readers (or listeners) engage with the story. What are the most common “mistakes” in the text and why do you consider them “mistakes”? As identified earlier, the most common “mistakes” in my story include a lack of formatting, frequent grammatical errors, and incorrectly transcribed words or phrases. These are mistakes because they detract from the clarity and rhythm of my narrative. Another common issue was the fragmented or run-on sentences that were created due to the inaccuracy of the technology. For example, in one part of my story it reads: “Our hospital bag was mostly packed, but we were worried that we might have forgotten something remember carrying out so much stuff to the car that I wasn’t sure we would need to drive to the hospital wasn’t too long, but I felt like it took forever when we got there the nurses were really good like they were calm.” Here the transcription missed the natural cadence and pauses of my vocal version, leading to a mess of words. What if you had “scripted” the story, what difference might that have made? In what ways does oral storytelling differ from written storytelling? A “scripted” story would read very differently from this transcribed edition. For one, a scripted version would have conveyed my intended message more accurately than the one produced by the speech-to-text software. I would have edited for grammatical errors and ensured that every thought connected smoothly from one to the next. The descriptions would have also been more precise, avoiding the inaccuracy that occurred in the speech to text version. In addition, a scripted story might have had a clearer narrative structure. Instead of revealing the steady stream of consciousness that flowed from my thoughts as they came to me, I could have planned out the key points in advance, and added further details that I forgot about when narrating to my phone. That being said, I believe a true oral storytelling of this event, such as an audio recording, would have captured the emotional impact of my story in a way that a text version, even an edited one, may not. There is a reason why miscommunication often occurs over a text or email, as the reader misses important auditory cues that can be present in a verbal conversation. As identified by Gnanadesikan’s (2011, “although writing represents information about how words are pronounced, it does not record the identifying details of any individual utterance of those words. It records language, but not actual speech. Even in cases of dictation or courtroom stenography, much information about the actual speech is lost, such as intonation and emotional content” (p. 9). References Gnanadesikan, A.E. (2011). The first IT revolution. In The writing revolution: Cuneiform to the Internet (pp. 1-12). John Wiley & Sons. |