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In:The Documentarist Turn: From observable linguistic behaviour to typological generalizations
Edited by Sonja Riesberg, Uta Reinöhl and Birgit Hellwig
[Studies in Language Companion Series 240] 2026
► pp. 343–371

Chapter 14
Transcription practices and (the documentation of) metalinguistic knowledge

ORCiD logo with link | University of Cologne
ORCiD logo with link | University of Cologne
ORCiD logo with link | University of Zurich
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
Transcripts are an integral part of documentary corpora, and transcription, conducted in close cooperation with a language’s speakers/signers, is central to fieldwork activities. Yet, transcription practices — involving decisions that reduce the complexity of an audio/video signal into a written form — remain surprisingly under-researched within the language documentation context. This contribution investigates variability and agreement among transcribers across three languages (Iha, Qaqet, Dëne Sųłıné), focusing on their phonemic and phonetic spellings of nasalization, and asks to what extent the observed transcription strategies provide a window into metalinguistic knowledge. The results paint a complex picture, partly corroborating the view that speakers are aware of phonemes, but also demonstrating that speakers are aware of considerable phonetic detail and automatic (morpho-)phonological processes.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Methodologies
  • 3.Nasalization
  • 4.Case studies
    • 4.1Iha
    • 4.2Qaqet
    • 4.3Dëne Sųłıné
  • 5.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
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