Geographies of talk:2, 15‘Max left a message for you’16, 24

Abstract

Summary A little worried about the manner in which transcripts of speech are used in geography, the author telephoned19 a linguist. Unfortunately, she had taken most of her answers elsewhere, leaving only the normal economical opening and delayed listening sequence on her answering machine, to which the author left the following message.20 His lengthy speaking turn, transcribed here from microcassette,21 appears to be an argument about some differences between written texts and interactional talk. Having suggested that talk has specific qualities, the author bemoans the predominance of transcription and coding routines, which lead to a particular kind of representative quotation. Drawing on preceding coffee‐time debates with the aforementioned linguist, he wonders aloud22 about using different forms of transcription to shift talk into the scriptural economy of papers, articles and books, and whether more use ought to be made of the analytic methods of conversational analysis. A torn‐off piece of computer print‐out is included,23 since it was mentioned on the tape as an illustration of the relevance of conversational analysis.