Moeller, Adolph, Mabee, Berger

Moeller, Adolph, Mabee, Berger

Kaleidoskop

Seventh Edition

Video Guide

Introduction

On the Creative Use of Transcripts

In response to teacher requests, we have provided a complete, accurate transcript for this program. Properly used, the transcript will be an enormous timesaver for teachers. The use of a transcript is not without its dangers, however.

A carefully checked transcript can be an important resource. It decodes difficult passages and spells out unfamiliar vocabulary. It thus keeps individual teachers from having to listen three times to trouble spots or verify every proper noun. But a transcript can also obscure the very function of video materials in the curriculum. Like conversational speech, video’s oral discourse is rarely understood word-for-word even by native speakers. To reduce video’s living multidimensionality to the comfortable fixity of a printed transcript would surely impoverish the video medium, undermining the very reason for choosing video.

Although painstakingly accurate in representing the language heard, in most cases the transcript contains little or no information about the images seen on the video. Reading the transcript therefore serves very poorly as a substitute for previewing the actual video clip. Exercises and activities based solely on the transcript tend to treat the video as nothing more than an illustrated linguistic text, lacking the liveliness and cultural authenticity of exercises and activities prepared on the basis of the tape’s full audiovisual unity. Teachers who base their lessons on previewing the video rather than on merely reading the transcript are more likely to take full advantage of the extraordinary cultural richness of video’s oral language and authentic images.

PICS/AltamirA Transcribing Conventions

In transcribing all programs we have tried to capture as much as possible of the spoken language, including narration, dialogue, overlapping conversations, songs, utterances in languages other than the target language, naturally occurring grammatical errors, interrupted words or phrases, and the use of such hesitation devices as um, er, uh. In general, unusually long pauses in speech will be represented by an ellipsis (...) in the transcript; any interruptions or non-fluencies in speech will be indicated with a long dash ( — ). Three bold dots at the left margin indicate a change of scene. Where we have not been able to decipher a word, name, or phrase, or are unsure of our transcription, we have marked the questionable or unknown segment with square brackets [?].

These transcripts are intended to be extremely close renderings of all of the language present in the videos. We have tried to represent pronunciation as closely as possible, adhering to native spelling conventions of standard as well as dialectal variations of the language whenever available, rather than giving a strictly phonetic transcription of pronunciation differences.

There may be many colloquialisms, contracted forms, hesitations, and occasional examples of non-standard pronunciation, syntax, or usage—all characteristic of informal speech.

Instances of non-standard syntax occur throughout dialogue, whether uttered by native speakers or by non-native users of the language. In every case the transcription shows what was actually uttered, leaving it to the teacher or student to recognize such naturally occurring speech errors.

Because these transcripts are intended to reflect utterances precisely, the use of abbreviations and acronyms is limited to instances where the speaker actually pronounces the abbreviated form or the letters of the acronym. Numbers are spelled out where reasonable, except in dates.

In all PICS/AltamirA transcripts, spoken utterances are in roman type, attributed wherever possible to a speaker whose identity appears in boldface at the left margin. Words which appear printed on screen are set off by square brackets and are in italics. Lyrics to songs are indented and printed in italics. Utterances in other languages are also printed in italics.

Anny Ewing

AltamirA Educational Solutions

Kaleidoskop Video was produced by PICS (the Project for International Communication Studies) and AltamirA Educational Solutions at The University of Iowa Video Center.

All of the video segments in Kaleidoskop Video are used with permission of the ZDF (Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen), Mainz, Germany.

A co-production of Houghton Mifflin Company, AltamirA Educational Solutions and PICS.