ABSTRACT

One of the most cumbersome tasks many researchers face is the process of transcribing, often met with resounding sighs as hours of speech can translate into weeks of transcription work. It therefore comes as no surprise that some scholars choose to outsource this stage of the process, one which nevertheless remains underexplored as a social practice in its own right. Indeed, as this chapter aims to demonstrate, the practices involved in the transfer between modalities – in this case spoken to written – beckon further critical engagement (see Davidson, 2009 for an excellent overview of the transcription literature). Moreover, the multilingual dimensions involved in transcribing and interpreting interactional data have received little attention in sociolinguistic research. This chapter outlines several key issues central to multilingual data representation and analysis, adopting a critical and reflexive approach to these questions. The examples provided are drawn from my research among three families in Melbourne, Australia (Vakser, 2014), which explores experiences of Russianness in multilingual domestic settings.