English

Um, er: How meaning varies between speech and its typed transcript

Physics and Society 2016-09-06 v1

Abstract

We use an extract from an interview concerning gravitational wave physics to show that the meaning of hesitancies within speech are different when spoken and when read from the corresponding transcript. When used in speech, hesitancies can indicate a pause for thought, when read in a transcript they indicate uncertainty. In a series of experiments the perceived uncertainty of the transcript was shown to be higher than the perceived uncertainty of the spoken version with almost no overlap for any respondent. We propose that finding and the method could be the beginning of a new subject we call 'Language Code Analysis' which would systematically examine how meanings change when the 'same' words are communicated via different media and symbol systems.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1609.01207,
  title  = {Um, er: How meaning varies between speech and its typed transcript},
  author = {Harry Collins and Willow Leonard-Clarke and Hannah O'Mahoney},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1609.01207},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

15 pages, 9 tables

R2 v1 2026-06-22T15:40:15.818Z