ABSTRACT
Many theoretical and technical issues regarding the transcription of video data are similar to those pertaining to audio recordings. For instance, transcription must be approached in connection with other research activities involved in data construction, namely the fieldwork before it and, afterward, writing and data analysis. Transcription must be adjusted with every kind of linguistic material one transcribes, which requires its customized “protocol.” The reason is that the how-to-transcribe question mainly boils down to what one has to transcribe. Transcription has certainly been one of the most discussed epistemological topics in sociolinguistic research since E. Ochs, which draws attention to the theoretical implications of the activity. Innovative idiosyncratic transcriptions may well serve a researcher’s analysis, but they may also impede a reader’s understanding of data. In other words, ways of transcribing are also shaped by expected ways of reading. Because video recording and the transcription activity are selective processes, they both determine and bear on the formulation of hypotheses.
