Making progress... :-)

Luff and Heath seemed like a lot of common sense, but it was also good to read that other people struggle with these decisions!  I've been dealing with some "technical challenges" with classroom observation video equipment for the last month.  I was extremely excited that the classroom I am using for my DA project was FINALLY able to record this week after lots of days and hours of work getting the equipment up and running.  Then on Friday I went to download the teacher's instruction from the week...  And my angles were...uh..."not ideal".  In this particular classroom there are 2 cameras mounted on the front and back walls of the classroom.  This allows one camera to capture the students from the front, while the other camera captures the students from the back along with the teacher and the instructional aides she is using.  But...I set the camera angles based on observations I had done in her classroom.  It's always difficult to determine how I can get the best data.  I like to get the big picture of what's happening in the room, but I also like to be zoomed in enough to see signs, facial expressions, and other non-manual communication clearly.  I thought I had them set well.  The teacher camera angle was set to include (from left to right) the flip chart easel the teacher uses for planning, the interactive whiteboard where the writing is displayed, and the teacher computer where the teacher often sits to add to the class co-construction.  So turns out, the teacher likes to stand to the left of the easel...often!  So she's off screen for a large portion of the videos.  Awesome.  I set the system up for the teacher to adjust the angles herself with very little effort, but she didn't check it prior to record.  So I'm left with lots of footage that will be difficult to analyze...because I can only hear her.  Luff and Heath talk about how the angles impact the perspective and analysis.  The give great examples of this, but I think in a situation where communication is predominately manual this impact may be even more pronounced.  

While reading all these chapters and articles on transcription, I've really been thinking about the task of recording sign language on paper.  First of all, I really need to look for some resources on this.  Right now I don't know if I'm planning to write an "English" transcription or keep it in ASL by using "glossing"  (writing the signs in English words using all caps).  I know how to gloss in theory.  I've even done it a lot.  But I'm not really trained in it.  I learned ASL through immersion, not through ASL, interpreting, or Linguistics classes...so I'm not really "qualified".  (I actually think that if I were to do a study that I was ever planning to publish, I would likely work together with a person trained in ASL linguistics...but anyway...)  I'm assuming there are some generally accepted approaches to recording manual communication...although, like all things in deaf ed, it's probably an extremely controversial topic.  I'd like to see how other researchers have approaches recording ASL, especially those things which we refer to as "non-manual markers" (facial expressions, mouth movements, etc.)   How have they been recorded.  I think sign intensity could easily be recorded in a way that is similar to inflection codes in Jeffersonian transcription.  So...about this whole Jeffersonian thing.  I don't hate it.  I kind of really like it.  I just think it will likely need to be adapted to record manual communication.  So since we have to pullout fragments to do in Jeffersonian, would it be acceptable for mine to be a slightly different adapted version of Jeffersonian?  Again...I need to look for resources on what others have done.  I don't expect you to have any idea...but I am asking in terms of the assignment.  

Beyond the general practice of recording manual communication, I've been thinking of my unique situation.  At the school where I am recording classroom discourse, the instructional policy mandates that teachers utilize "simultaneous communication, or simcom.  This means the teachers (and some students) both speak and sign while communicating.  And this means there are two completely different messages being sent simultaneously.  All participants and/or observers have different levels of access to each of these messages.  I keep trying to determine how I want to approach this.  Basically, I need to determine if I'm going to include spoken communication in my analysis.  Jefferson (2004) says "Why put all that stuff in?  Well, as they say, because it's there" (p. 16).  I think that's my hangup with this.  I don't want to completely ignore messages that are there.  There are times when parts of the discourse are only delivered auditorily...but those messages aren't available to everyone.  Decisions on how to handle this could really impact the analysis and findings.  How exactly could this be indicated, would I put the sign language over the English to show that it's happening at the same time?  It could, I think, be interesting even to look at times with these messages (auditory and visual) may even be in conflict with one another.  But...I think, because this is a learning experience, I'll likely focus on all of the communication that is visually accessible.  Let's keep this simple(-ish?)  This brings me back to the footage I have of last week.  I can hear the teacher, but I often can't see her...so I suppose I'll have to throw out that footage, fix the angles, and try to get better footage this week.  

I enjoyed reading Wiggins et al.  Not because of the topic...I actually found that to be somewhat annoying...but because it was helpful to see an example.  :-)  I know I've read articles that have used DA and CA before, but I wasn't "reading them like a researcher", so I didn't really pay attention to their methods.  Their explanation of their analytic procedure was helpful because I've been thinking the whole time--so when I go to analyze this data I'm collecting, what exactly will I be doing?  One of the 3 sentences I highlighted in this section said, "The data corpus was examined with a concern for the constructive and action-orientated nature of the participants' talk; how the participants themselves made sense of, and orientated towards, each other's utterances" (p. 8).   It was a really short section, but it very clearly explained exactly what they had done and how the next section would be set up.  While I wasn't overly interested in their topic, reading this example made me look forward to reading the articles for my lit review so I can see examples of DA in action, in my field.