Task 2: Voice to Text
Inserted below is the screenshot of my “voice to text” attempt:
Analyzing my “voice to text” story:
This task really tested my desire to control and edit. It was extremely difficult to use “speech to text” and watch your words be manipulated on a screen. Several times I caught myself blanking as I was more focused on the way my words were being translated than what I was trying to “write” about. It took every part of me to avoid fixing grammar and punctuation mistakes which lead to a flat and meaningless story.
How does the text deviate from conventions of written English?
I want to initiate my reflection to this question with a quote from Gnanadesikan (2011):
“As human societies became more complex, those attempting to control them found that their memories were overtaxed. What they needed was an external storage device. What they came up with is writing.” (p. 3).
This quote directly reflects my ability to create an oral story on the spot. I needed a place to put my thoughts so my brain could do the thinking. The text deviates from conventions of written English primarily due to the lack of clarity and organization. While writing by hand or by device, we have the opportunity to think, stop, rewrite, delete, and so on. This reminds me of what Gnanadesikan (2011) says about the privileges of technology; “The marvelous technology that allows the past to speak directly to the future in this way is by now so per- vasive that we take it for granted: it is writing.” We have the ability to write something and come back to it to completely change our initial words. Unlike written English, it felt as though there was a sense of pressure to continue your words. During this activity, I found myself having “writers block” but I had to keep moving forward as I could see the microphone anxiously waiting to pick up on the sound of my voice. As writers, we forget how privileged we are to have time to think and rewrite sections of our stories. Speech to text limits your ability to have that privilege of changing and rewriting your thoughts as everything you say is going to be translated on the screen. I would anxiously watch my screen to see if it would pick up on similar sounding words and record the one I actually meant to deliver. I feel as though written English, maybe due to the fact that I am more familiar with it, provides a better opportunity for creativity. This story clearly lacked creativity and formality and poorly reflects on my writing abilities.
What is “wrong” in the text? What is “right”?
Overall, I would consider my entire story “wrong”. It lacks structure such as a plot line, intriguing moments, and proper grammar. It is something I would look at as an educator and think to myself: what is going on here? Who is Sally? Why is she rambling on about soccer practice? Besides the entirety of the story, there are several “wrongs”. Specifically, grammatical errors. There were times I remembered to physically say punctuation terms which caused chaos within sentences. From then, I would find myself flustered and unwilling to move on. There is also a few words that were heard wrong. For example, I say, “within five minutes, Sally fields feels as though she is still a very good player”, where I meant to say feels and not fields. Although I am having a hard time finding any “right” within my text, there are several instances where grammar and punctuation were properly translated. For example, names and places are capitalized and commas are evident.
What are the most common “mistakes” in the text and why do you consider them “mistakes”?
The most common mistakes are the places where I said one word and an entirely different word was placed. I also notice that there are areas where the tense is incorrect and makes the story seem confusing and hard to follow. Although, the idea of the story also makes it hard to follow. I consider them mistakes as I would normally catch errors like these and make changes to them before handing in an assignment or even sending an email. Although pencil and paper writing makes it more difficult to change errors, it is still doable. In this task, we were unable to make changes to our text which left me with a sense of vulnerability for my academic ability.
What if you had “scripted” the story? What difference might that have made?
Scripting my story would have made a world of difference. Like many writers, I would have created a plot organizer, a tool to organize a beginning, middle, and end of the story. It is evident in my story that it held no clear structure, the story wasn’t leading to anything and never provided any thrill. I would have provided more characters, description of the setting, and a clear direction of the plot. These changes would have allowed my story to have more depth and be much more entertaining.
In what ways does oral storytelling differ from written storytelling?
I believe oral storytelling offers a greater sense of authenticity compared to written storytelling. Although both can still be deemed authentic, the emotions and perspective can be much more clear listening to a story than reading it. Text, for example, text messaging, can often be read in the wrong tone or translated into the wrong context. Therefore, oral storytelling or communicating is more transparent with emotion. If an oral storyteller wants to show emotion in their text, they can raise their voice or speak in a softer or slower way. Whereas a written storyteller uses grammar and punctuation to translate emotion. Hearing a story orally can be more powerful, however, may not give you as much time to reflect. As someone is speaking, you are awaiting for the next pattern of words. As you are reading text, you have time to read, re-read, and reflect on the words that are written. Gnanadesikan (2011) shares how words being written down on a page can be more thoroughly inspected as you have time to process and analyze the information. Additionally, Gnanadesikan (2011) shares how people have a higher belief in what is written down compared to what is spoken. I can understand this as this reflects your ability to do your own investigation on the words and information compared to feeling of hope you have in trusting your oral speaker. Both methods of storytelling have benefits that can change your perspective on the language being presented.
References
Gnanadesikan, A. E. (2011).“The First IT Revolution.” In The writing revolution: Cuneiform to the internet (Vol. 25). John Wiley & Sons (pp. 1-10).