How to Transcribe Multimodal Interaction?

This working paper looks at some of the key issues to consider when transcribing multimodal interaction. Making a transcript is an invaluable analytical exercise: by forcing yourself to attend to the details of a strip of interaction you gain a wealth of insights into the situated construction of social reality, including insights in the collaborative achievements of people, their formation of identities and power relations, and the socially and culturally shaped categories through which they see the world. In this paper I reflect on the process of making a multimodal transcript. I discuss the following steps: (1) Choosing a methodological framework (Reviewing multimodal frameworks and Considering rhetorical status of the transcript); (2) Defining purpose and focus of transcript (Selecting episode and features to transcribe and Defining questions to address; (3) Designing the transcript (Creating a template, Defining transcription conventions and Filling in the template); (4) Reading the transcript (Annotating and Recounting the transcript); (5) Drawing conclusions (Addressing research questions and Making connections with other studies and theoretical constructs).