Coding unintelligible language

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Elnaz Kia

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Apr 22, 2021, 6:46:48 PM4/22/21
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Hi everyone,

I have a question about coding unintelligible language with xxx. Here is my understanding based on the 2020 CHAT instruction manual (MacWhinney, 2020): 

- If a complete utterance is fully unintelligible, I should mark the utterance with xxx.
- If I am able to tell the number of words that are unintelligible, then I should use that many strings of xxx. For instance, if the utterance is “I am a teacher” and I can only get the “I am” part, but I hear 2 other words that are unintelligible, then I should code the sentence like this:
“I am xxx xxx.” 
- I can use as many xxx strings as I want for the number of words that are unintelligible. 

Would you confirm my understandings?

Thank you,
Elnaz

Brian Macwhinney

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Apr 22, 2021, 6:56:14 PM4/22/21
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Dear Elnaz,

Yes, it is okay to use repetitions of xxx, if you want to mark the fact that several words are unintelligible. Many analyses exclude sentences with unintelligible segments, so it doesn’t really matter in such cases whether you have just xxx or xxx xxx. However, representing how many words are missing might be helpful when listening to the audio.

— Brian MacWhinney
Teresa Heinz Professor of Cognitive Psychology,
Language Technologies and Modern Languages, CMU
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Elnaz Kia

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Apr 23, 2021, 12:47:20 PM4/23/21
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Dear Brian,

Thank you so much for your prompt and helpful response. I do have one more question. Is there a way to batch edit CHAT files? For instance, my transcribers used different ways to code unintelligible utterances and I want them to revise those instances to assure consistency in coding. However, they have already transcribed hundreds of files and it is really time-consuming to go back and edit them one by one. 

I would really appreciate any help or guidance on that.

Thank you,
Elnaz



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Brian Macwhinney

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Apr 23, 2021, 4:55:40 PM4/23/21
to ChiBolts, Elnaz Kia
Dear Elnaz,

It seems that you are talking about doing global changes across a collection of files. If the changes are simple, you can use the CHSTRING program. Howe However, for more complex changes, I use BBEdit and there are also some other editor programs such as SublimeEdit and Atom. I have never tried Atom, but is gets good reviews.

— Brian MacWhinney
Teresa Heinz Professor of Cognitive Psychology,
Language Technologies and Modern Languages, CMU



> On Apr 23, 2021, at 12:51 PM, Elnaz Kia <ek...@nau.edu> wrote:
>
> Dear Brian,
>
> Thank you so much for your prompt and helpful response. I do have one more question. Is there a way to batch edit CHAT files? For instance, my transcribers used different ways to code unintelligible utterances and I want them to revise those instances to assure consistency in coding. However, they have already transcribed hundreds of files and it is really time-consuming to go back and edit them one by one.
>
> I would really appreciate any help or guidance on that.
>
> Thank you,
> Elnaz
>
> Elnaz Kia, Ph.D. (she, her, hers)
> Post-Doctoral Research Associate
> Second Language Teaching and Research Center (L2TReC)
> University of Utah
> LinkedIn
> Personal Website
>
>
>
> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/chibolts/CAOwOJY%3DLswfevu_ADM%3DHCozFBvEm%3DiWFNmiyhNAM-xdkvzVLQQ%40mail.gmail.com.

Elnaz Kia

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Apr 23, 2021, 5:04:30 PM4/23/21
to Brian Macwhinney, ChiBolts
Dear Brian,

Thanks again for your response. I will try these out and see what I can do. 

Have a great weekend!
Elnaz



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