Conventions for transcribing multimodality
In order to systematically exploit video materials within the conversation analytic mentality, it is important to be able to annotate the precise temporal and sequential details of the ongoing verbal and embodied actions.
The conventions for transcribing multimodality I have been developing since the beginning of the 2000s are now used by a number of scholars and students.
These conventions enable the annotation of the precise temporality of a diversity of phenomena, ranging from classical embodied features like gesture and gaze, to postures, movements, body arrangements in interactional spaces, manipulations of objects and tools in material environments, silent activities, camera movements, sensorial practices like touching, smelling and tasting, as well as animal encounters.
Transcription conventions are not just a methodological tool; they constitute a specific way of observing, annotating and ultimately analyzing the data, enabling the discovery of systematic practices.
The conceptual issues addressed by the conventions are discussed in Mondada (2018) [Mondada, L. (2018) Multiple Temporalities of Language and Body in Interaction: Challenges for Transcribing Multimodality, Research on Language and Social Interaction, 51:1, 85-106.].
The conventions for transcribing multimodality are developed and explained in a document also including a tutorial (link)
