Transcription Mode is a mode designed to increase the speed and efficiency of transcription work. The interface is keyboard-driven and minimizes UI actions. All annotations of a certain tier type are displayed in a vertical list for easy visual access. Transcription mode brings down the transcription work to the bare essentials: listen, type, listen, type, listen, type. To go open transcription mode, select Options > Transcription mode . If you go to Transcription mode for the first time, a Settings dialog will come up (see Figure 3.2, “Settings Dialog”) else transcription window is opened with the last used settings (see Figure 3.14, “Transcription Window” ).
Transcription mode presupposes that the initial segmentation of the recording is already done. The rationale for this is that the most efficient work flow for transcribing large amounts of linguistic data is a two-step process: first segmenting the recording into turns —also attributing turns to the appropriate speaker— (this can be done in Annotation mode(see Annotation mode )or in the special purpose Segmentation mode(see Segmentation mode)), and then transcribing and translating these turns.
If you go to Transcription mode for the first time, a Settings dialog will come up else click on the configure... button in the settings panel (see Figure 3.14, “Transcription Window”). Here you can select the tier types and the number of columns.
Options in this dialog :
You select tier types, not individual tiers. This is because Transcription mode displays all annotations on all tiers of a certain type in a vertical column.
For the purposes of this description we will assume that the user is working with a file that has six main tier types:po (practical orthography), dt (detailed transcript), tl (literal translation), tf (free translation), tn (translation in lingua franca) and vb (visible behaviour). Our example file contains tiers of these types for two participants, and the overall tier structure looks like this :
In our example, we choose the type po (practical orthography) as the first column. We can leave it at that if we just want to work on the transcript. Or we can display any number of columns next to the primary one, the number of columns depends on the available linked tier types — for instance the free translations and/or a literal translations and/or detailed transcript and/or translations in lingua franca.
For the other columns we can only select tier types that are time-aligned with the first using the stereotype “Symbolic Association” (see Table 2.2, “Tier type stereotypes” ). In our example, we can have maximum four columns with tier types dt (detailed transcript), tl (literal translation), tf (free translation) and tn (translation in lingua franca). We cannot choose the tier type vb (visible behaviour)here, because it is not time-aligned with our primary column. Thus the primary column type can be of any type, but the types for other columns should be somehow symbolic associated.
Having selected the tier types , click “Apply”. Now the chosen tier types are displayed in vertical columns (see Figure 3.14, “Transcription Window”), and the two largest differences from the default Annotation mode become visible: (i) all annotations are displayed vertically (top to bottom) rather than horizontally (left to right), and (ii) columns display all annotations of a certain type. For instance, the po (practical orthography) column displays turns from both speakers A and B.
Transcription mode presupposes that you use tier types to differentiate the types of information in your tiers. Thus the tier type of your free translation tier should be different from the tier type of your main transcription.
Once you have selected the types for transcribing, it is possible to select the tiers if the transcription has more than one tier of a type which is selected for other columns. To select the tiers, click the select tiers... button in the Settings Dialog(see Figure 3.2, “Settings Dialog”. This dialog comes up.
Using this dialog you can choose which tiers should be used on which column in the transcription table. This dialog is also used to show or hide tiers from the transcription table. To hide tiers, uncheck the box in the first column.
To hide a group of linked tiers, any one of the following options could be done.
To hide or show more number of tiers,
To change the color of any tiers, do the following steps.
From the context menu that shows up, you can set the tier background color, the tier highlight color and the font. To do so, click on one of the Browse buttons.
The next context menu will let you select the color. Click on one of the tabs: 'Swatches', 'HSB' or 'RGB' and choose a color. A preview is shown on the bottom of the dialog. When done, click OK or, if you want to add the color to your favorites, go to the tab Favorites and click the 'add' button. The color will be added to your favorites.
The Tier Attributes context dialog will now show the chosen color next to 'Tier Color'. If you are satisfied, click Apply. Alternatively, you can also set the tier highlight color in a similar way.
In the context dialog that pops up, you can select what attributes must get the specified color. Also you can select what kind of tiers should get the specified colors. When done, click Apply and the changes will be made.
To change the color of any tiers, do the following steps.
From the context menu that shows up, you can set the tier background color, the tier highlight color and the font. To do so, click on one of the Browse buttons.
The next context menu will let you select the color. Click on one of the tabs: 'Swatches', 'HSB' or 'RGB' and choose a color. A preview is shown on the bottom of the dialog. When done, click OK or, if you want to add the color to your favorites, go to the tab Favorites and click the 'add' button. The color will be added to your favorites.
The Tier Attributes context dialog will now show the chosen color next to 'Tier Color'. If you are satisfied, click Apply. Alternatively, you can also set the tier highlight color in a similar way.
In the context dialog that pops up, you can select what attributes must get the specified color. Also you can select what kind of tiers should get the specified colors. When done, click Apply and the changes will be made.
Making a tier non-editable is to avoid putting that tier in edit mode while navigating through the table . For instance if some of the tiers of the same type are transcribed and few are not, to avoid the transcribed ones to get in to edit mode the tiers can be locked(made non-editable). To freeze/unfreeze the tiers, right click on the tier name (if shown) or right click on any of the locked or unlocked annotation of the tier will popup either this menu - see : Figure 3.5, “Context Menu ” or this menu - see :Figure 3.16, “Context Menu for a Annotation”. In the popup menu select make this tier non editable to freeze a tier or select make this tier editable to unfreeze the tier.
Transcription mode is built for high-speed transcription work. Once you have selected the tier types for the columns , the table is loaded with the tiers of the selected types. Clicking on Apply button in the settings dialog(see Figure 3.2, “Settings Dialog”) will bring this window:
Options available in this window :
The other media player options like, go to next of previous second/pixel/frame are only available as shortcut actions. To see the shortcuts used for this action, go to menu View -> Shortcuts... and select transcription mode.
Each cell in the table is the representation of the annotation on a tier. The annotations are sorted/aligned based on the begin time of it. Clicking on any annotation(cell) activates it for editing. You can directly start typing the text for the annotation. After entering the text, press ENTERto save the changes made in the current annotation and to put the next annotation to edit mode. The Navigate across columns setting controls whether you go down within a column or you move across columns (from left to right). There are several ways to put a annotation to edit mode. A single mouse click on an annotation or a right click made on a annotation will put the annotation in edit mode and pops up the context menu below and for other keys see Shortcut keys used in this mode.
Other options available in this mode :
To merge two annotations, first make a right click on the annotation. This will pop up a context menu( see Figure 3.16, “Context Menu for a Annotation”). Then select either Merge with annotation before or Merge with next annotation . For detailed information see Merging annotations.
This mode only allows to edit the text of the annotation. In order to do some modifications on the annotation, i.e. to finely manipulate annotation boundaries or to split a annotation, right click on the annotation. This will popup a menu (see Figure 3.16, “Context Menu for a Annotation”) . Select edit in annotation mode to jump to this annotation in the annotation mode which allows you do modify the annotations. For detailed information on changes the annotation boundaries see Changing the boundaries of an existing selection and annotation and to split annotations see Split Annotations
The following shortcut keys are the mainly used default shortcuts in this mode.
To see a full list of shortcuts used in this mode, go to View -> Shortcuts.... To edit/customize the shortcuts see Editing shortcuts