A question on how to transcribe an oral history

[femmedem]

Several days ago I interviewed a local man who is ninety years old about his experiences with discrimination prior to the passage of the Fair Housing Act and about his activism as a member of the NAACP during the 1960's. (This is for a program which will mark the 50th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act's passage.)

Now I am transcribing the recording, and I'm not sure if I should retain speech patterns which aren't grammatically correct but which are true to his voice. Specifically, he almost always says "they was" or "we was." I'm a white woman, and I want to honor him--but I'm not sure if that means staying true to the exact words he spoke, or editing grammatical errors that sound fine when spoken but leap out on the written page.

He generously gave me his time in order to contribute to this project, and I like and admire him. I don't want him to read his transcript and feel like I changed his words because I didn't think his real words were good enough; nor do I want him to read a word-for-word transcription and feel as if I've presented him as uneducated.

If you have any thoughts or guidance to offer, I'd be grateful.

[IphengeniaBlumgarten]

1. I would vote for letting him speak in his own words.

There are many different speech patterns in English and notions of correctness can vary and change in time and across communities. I think it is a better honor to accept the speech he has grown up with than to try to make it conform to your own.

But opinions may certainly vary on this!

[femmedem]

2. Thank you. That is how I am leaning.

I transcribed it both ways, and the version that is most edited just doesn't feel like him. If his family read it, they wouldn't feel as if they recognized his voice.

[irisblue]

3. Keep his speech patterns & exact words.

It is his story. My opinion

[femmedem]

7. Thank you, Iris.

I'm feeling much more confidant now about keeping his exact words because of everyone's responses.

[irisblue]

9. Are the records going to an academic center or a museum? nt

[femmedem]

10. They will be archived at a nonprofit historic preservation organization where I work.

So they will be available to the public.

They're part of a program I'm putting together about how discrimination altered our built environment: exclusionary zoning, redlining, black neighborhoods razed for urban renewal.

[aikoaiko]

4. I think you should take a moment and research the methodology of oral histories

I suspect that there conventions that make your task easier and be more accessible to other historians.

It's recorded so there isn't a rush.

[femmedem]

8. Thanks for responding.

I have read up on other people's methodologies, and I wouldn't say there's a consensus, except to edit out the uhs and ums.

But it does seem as if methodologies are changing back to a more accurate rendering of people's speech, and it helps me to know that the people in this forum agree.

[aikoaiko]

11. Good luck. Oral histories are important

Maybe one thing to do would be to find another transcribed oral history by a professional historian of someone with the same derilect. And then you could follow their style of representing regional English.

[JustAnotherGen]

5. Do not

One of my ancestors was included in FDR's documentation work program/slave narratives.

You will lose patterns and meanings if you alter them even by the tiniest bit.

Those of you who have weighed in or MIGHT way in that have not had exposure to the older generations dialects might not understand things like 'carried John' or 'goin fa bad' . . .


Let the words said just sit - Miss Gracie was recorded and documented 'as is' and I'm forever grateful for that.

If not for your readers today Femme - then for his descendants in 80 years. Thanks.

[femmedem]

6. Thank you so much for your thoughtful and passionate reply.

I will honor it with my careful and accurate transcription of his words as he spoke them.

Edited to add: it must mean so much to you to have an accurate oral history of your relative. I know some of this man's family, and they have told me how much this will mean to them and their children.