Variation in space and society
The case of interviewers and transcribers in a corpus of spoken French (ESLO)
Sociolinguistics and dialectology share the same
interest in the spoken language and the same method: the use of
surveys. They both collect their primary data and organise them into
corpora, but they differ in the way their results are presented.
Based on the Sociolinguistic Survey in Orléans (ESLO), this chapter
explores two hitherto neglected factors that may impinge on survey
and transcription methodologies: the characteristics of the
interviewers and their relationship with the interviewees according
to the type of situation; and the profiles of the transcribers and
their relationship to the standard French. We conclude that both
features constitute parameters of variation, to which the ESLO
corpus provides access.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Conducting a sociolinguistic survey: The example of ESLO
- 2.1Objectives, constitution of the panel, and drafting of the
questionnaires
- 2.2Collection, interviewers, and survey situations
- 2.3Transcription, transcribers, and versions A, B, and C
- 2.4Data generation: Records and metadata
- 2.5Annotations, analysis and applications
- 2.6Archiving, dissemination and exploitation
- 3.Focus: The investigator and the context
- 3.1The interviewer under investigation
- 3.2Variation of situations: Towards a community of
listeners
- 3.3Analysing variation: The social construction of the survey
relationship between the interviewer and interviewee
- 4.Focus: Transcriptions and those who make them
- 4.1Preparation
- 4.2The use of three transcripts: Differences between them and what they tell us
- 4.3Transcribers’ feedback on their work
- 5.Conclusion
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Notes
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References
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Corpus references
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Appendix