Week 1 (February 7 - 13)
Introduction to Microanalysis of Face-to-Face Dialogue and ELAN Software
Introduction
First, you’ll get a broad orientation to microanalysis of face-to-face dialogue. The readings provide an overview of what microanalysis is and how it is different from what you may have learned about communication. In later weeks, we will cover specific topics with additional materials, so you will learn each part intensively.
Next, you'll download and learn to use ELAN, which is the software that makes microanalysis possible. The advantage of ELAN over any other tool is that you can easily move around digitized video and can also record your analysis, which (unlike a transcript) is permanently linked to the section of video you are focusing on. It’s also free and well-maintained by its developers at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. Your first assignment will teach you how to download and use the basic features of ELAN. Practically every assignment in the following weeks will use ELAN.
In our own training, we found it helpful to be reminded that this is hard work. Hands-on practice is the only way to learn these skills, and you will get faster as the course progresses. Sara Healing is the primary resource person for any ELAN or other technical issues you may encounter, and she's eager to help. You can post your questions on the course site to the “Discussion Forum” named “Technical Issues and Other Questions.” Sara will regularly monitor this forum, answering your technical questions each week as you post them.
Learning Objectives
-Understand the basics of microanalysis
-Download the ELAN software onto your computer
-Understand how to load a video clip into ELAN
-Be able to create tiers in ELAN
-Be able to transcribe a dialogue in ELAN from a video clip
Readings
(These can be downloaded each week from the Dropbox folder: “Downloads, IMA online course.” Downloading instructions are given in the "Welcome and Course Summary" under the "Dropbox Folders" heading.)
Required Readings:
Bavelas, J., Gerwing, J., Healing, S., & Tomori, C. (2016). Microanalysis of Face-to-face Dialogue: An Inductive Approach. In C. A. VanLear & D. J. Canary (Eds.), Researching communication interaction behavior: A sourcebook of methods and measures. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. This week: read pages 129-132, Box 9.1, and Figures 9.1 & 9.2.
Tacchetti, M. (2013). User Guide for ELAN Linguistic Annotator, version 4.1.0 The Language Archive, MPI for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Retrieved from http://www.mpi.nl/corpus/manuals/manual-elan_ug.pdf
The "User Guide for ELAN" is 26 pages long and while it contains a lot of helpful information there are some sections that you won't need to read and can ignore and other sections that are very important. The following are some tips for using the “User Guide for ELAN”:
Exercise
The exercise for this week includes downloading and learning to use ELAN, creating a folder on your desktop to organize your course materials, and doing your first short ELAN assignment. Read the “User Guide for ELAN Linguistic Annotator” and watch the video "A Demonstration of Elan" before beginning! You will need to know this material to do the exercise. (And remember: this is hard work, but it will be worth it)
1. Go to the Max Planck Institute’s (MPI) webpage (https://tla.mpi.nl/tools/tla-tools/elan/download/) and select the appropriate download for your computer and install it (PC or Mac). Note: MPI seems to update ELAN frequently, but successive versions are compatible.
2. As suggested in the “Welcome and Course Summary,” create a "microanalysis course" folder on your desktop to save all of your work in for this course. In this folder, create sub-folders for each week of the course titled “Week 1” “Week 2” etc.
3. Go to the Dropbox folder named “Downloads: IMA online course.” Download and save the video "A Demonstration of ELAN" to the subfolder for Week 1 in the desktop folder you created. Watch this video; it will walk you through using ELAN. (Remember, in order to download the video there are two different procedures depending on how you access Dropbox. If you use the Dropbox link (at the top of this page) to access the video, you will need to right click on the file and select the “Download” option. If "Download" isn't one of the options in the pop up window then select "Open" and when the file opens right click on it and select "Save AS" and then save the file to the appropriate weekly folder. If you choose to go to Dropbox via the Dropbox icon on your desktop, use copy and paste to download the video; do not drag the files out of your Dropbox!)
4. Go back to the Dropbox folder named “Downloads: IMA online course.” In the sub-folder for Week 1, find the video file titled “Burning Pillow clip” and download and save it in the sub-folder for Week 1 in the desktop folder you created.
5. Refer to the instructions in the "User Guide for ELAN Linguistic Annotator" and the video "A Demonstration of ELAN" to do this assignment. Open ELAN on your computer. Go to “File” and select “New”. At the top of this new window you will see a box (with an arrow on the right). Select the course folder and then the Week 1 sub-folder you created on your desktop and you will see a list of any video files in that sub-folder appear in the window. Select “Burning Pillow clip.mp4” and then click the arrow on the right (the video file will then appear in the right box labeled “selected files”). Then select “OK” at the bottom of the window. This will open the video file “Burning Pillow clip” in your ELAN.
6. Before continuing, save this ELAN file in the Week 1 sub-folder in the course folder you have created on your desktop as follows:
7. Now that your Burning Pillow clip file has been downloaded and saved in an ELAN file on your computer, begin by watching the video clip in the ELAN file. Explore the buttons below the video, as described in the "User Guide for ELAN Linguistic Annotator" pdf document (p. 10) , especially play/pause, frame forward and backward (>F and <F) and one-second forward and backward (1).
8. Now create two new tiers below the Default tier:
9. Now do the assignment (in 10 below), following the directions in the “User Guide for ELAN Linguistic Annotator" pdf document (pages 9-10, 16, 22, & 24) for selecting, playing a selection, and annotating the selection. Remember, the video "Demonstration of Elan" demonstrated how to add tiers and get started with the assignment. Watch it again if you need a refresher on how to do this.
10. The assignment: Transcribe (i.e., annotate) the dialogue from 34 seconds to 46.5 seconds. Put the Speaker's words in annotations on the Speaker tier and the Addressee's words in annotations on the Addressee's tier. (Note that "mhm" counts as a word.).
In order to assist you in creating a transcription in your ELAN, we have already completed a transcription of the first few utterances of the Burning Pillow clip in an example ELAN (see the two files: “Burning Pillow, transcription-example.eaf” and “Burning Pillow, transcription-example.pfsx” in the Week 1 sub-folder in the Dropbox folder: “Downloads, IMA online course.” Download these two files to your Week 1 sub-folder on your desktop. Open the eaf file by double clicking on it; it should open because you already have the Burning Pillow clip in that sub-folder. Notice how the first few utterances of both the speaker and addressee have been selected and annotated.
Now, IN YOUR OWN ELAN FILE (i.e. the one you saved with your initials), go ahead and select and annotate these first few utterances of the speaker and addressee just as they have been done in the example ELAN. Redoing the transcription of these first few utterances in your own ELAN will give you a bit of initial practice in the procedures for selecting, annotating, and saving your annotations. You can look back at the example ELAN to check whether you have annotated these first few utterances accurately. Then, go ahead and transcribe the utterances that occur between 34 seconds and 46.5 seconds in the clip, again in your own ELAN (i.e. the one with your initials). It is a good idea to save your work from time to time as you are doing the transcription. When you are finished, or if you stop your work and want to close the ELAN file to take a break, be sure to click the “yes” button when you are prompted about whether you want to save any unsaved data.
11. Upload your .eaf and pfsx files (the ones with your initials) with the completed transcription to the Week 1 sub-folder in the folder: “Uploads, IMA online course.” (Remember, when uploading, click on the Dropbox icon on your desktop, find the folder named “Uploads, IMA online course,” and use copy and paste to upload your file(s) to the appropriate sub-folder--do not drag.) The deadline for uploading is midnight this Saturday evening in your time zone (February 11).
Why this video?
The "Burning Pillow clip" video shows two previously unacquainted university students in a psychology experiment.* The speaker was telling a real, close-call story to the other person, her addressee. They kindly gave their permission for others to see their video for teaching purposes. They were sitting across from each other but filmed in split-screen, with two cameras, so you see them as they looked to each other. You may find it strange to begin a course on therapeutic dialogues by focusing on a video of two students in a lab setting, but it illustrates a problem we will encounter throughout the course: In virtually all publicly available videos of therapy dialogues, the camera switches back-and-forth to the person who is speaking at the moment. We wanted to start the course with a reminder that a face-to-face dialogue is an interaction between two people.
Even an addressee who is "just listening" is constantly responding to and influencing the speaker. As you will see in Week 2, focusing on one individual at a time makes their interaction invisible. In week 3, you will document the actions of both the speaker and addressee in the "Burning Pillow clip" video, recording how precisely they fit what each other is doing. Did the addressee nod? Smile? Look skeptical? These actions would have influenced the speaker but are lost in speaker-only recordings. Unfortunately, later in the course, we had no choice but to use professional recordings with their speaker-only focus, although we have tried to choose those moments when both are visible. When that was not possible, keep your mind open to what the speaker may have been responding to that is unseen to us.
Indeed, you might find it interesting to cover the right-hand side of the screen the first time you watch the "Burning Pillow clip,” then watch the full interaction before you begin your exercise. That is not part of this week's exercise, but you may find the contrast useful for completing assignments the next several weeks.
In Week 13, you will get some good advice about making your own videos with both (or all) participants on screen all of the time.
* They were in the control condition of one of the experiments in Bavelas, J. B., Coates, L., & Johnson, T. (2000). Listeners as co-narrators. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 941-952.
Posting
Comparison to other course members' ELANS
1. Find other individuals’ ELAN transcriptions of the “Burning Pillow clip” in the "Week 1" sub-folder in the Dropbox folder named: “Uploads, IMA online course.” Download 2 or 3 of their ELANs (download BOTH the .eaf and .pfsx files for each individual's work) to your Week 1 subfolder in the course folder on your desktop. (Important: you must download their ELANs to open them. And, remember to copy and paste to download; do not drag files from the Dropbox.) Both the .eaf and .pfsx files for each individual must be downloaded and saved in the same location as the "Burning Pillow Clip" file so that the ELAN files will open and play.
2. Open the 2 or 3 ELANs and review their annotations.
3. Then, select one of the two or three ELANs to compare to your own. Compare the other individual’s annotations of the speaker and addressee’s utterances to your own annotations, noting any differences you find (i.e. things you or the other individual have left out or misunderstood).
4. Write a post (title it "comparing with...") to the discussion forum for Week 1 called "Postings on Weekly Assignments" on the course website. In this post discuss your comparison to this course member's annotations, discussing both agreements and differences in your annotations. The deadline for completing your comparison post is this coming Monday evening at midnight in your time zone (February 13).
PDF of Week 1 instructions
Introduction to Microanalysis of Face-to-Face Dialogue and ELAN Software
Introduction
First, you’ll get a broad orientation to microanalysis of face-to-face dialogue. The readings provide an overview of what microanalysis is and how it is different from what you may have learned about communication. In later weeks, we will cover specific topics with additional materials, so you will learn each part intensively.
Next, you'll download and learn to use ELAN, which is the software that makes microanalysis possible. The advantage of ELAN over any other tool is that you can easily move around digitized video and can also record your analysis, which (unlike a transcript) is permanently linked to the section of video you are focusing on. It’s also free and well-maintained by its developers at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. Your first assignment will teach you how to download and use the basic features of ELAN. Practically every assignment in the following weeks will use ELAN.
In our own training, we found it helpful to be reminded that this is hard work. Hands-on practice is the only way to learn these skills, and you will get faster as the course progresses. Sara Healing is the primary resource person for any ELAN or other technical issues you may encounter, and she's eager to help. You can post your questions on the course site to the “Discussion Forum” named “Technical Issues and Other Questions.” Sara will regularly monitor this forum, answering your technical questions each week as you post them.
Learning Objectives
-Understand the basics of microanalysis
-Download the ELAN software onto your computer
-Understand how to load a video clip into ELAN
-Be able to create tiers in ELAN
-Be able to transcribe a dialogue in ELAN from a video clip
Readings
(These can be downloaded each week from the Dropbox folder: “Downloads, IMA online course.” Downloading instructions are given in the "Welcome and Course Summary" under the "Dropbox Folders" heading.)
Required Readings:
Bavelas, J., Gerwing, J., Healing, S., & Tomori, C. (2016). Microanalysis of Face-to-face Dialogue: An Inductive Approach. In C. A. VanLear & D. J. Canary (Eds.), Researching communication interaction behavior: A sourcebook of methods and measures. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. This week: read pages 129-132, Box 9.1, and Figures 9.1 & 9.2.
Tacchetti, M. (2013). User Guide for ELAN Linguistic Annotator, version 4.1.0 The Language Archive, MPI for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Retrieved from http://www.mpi.nl/corpus/manuals/manual-elan_ug.pdf
The "User Guide for ELAN" is 26 pages long and while it contains a lot of helpful information there are some sections that you won't need to read and can ignore and other sections that are very important. The following are some tips for using the “User Guide for ELAN”:
- ELAN was designed for linguists, so there are sometimes linguistic terms (e.g.," corpora ," "orthographic"). You don't need to know these.
- 2.2 Ignore the terms "parent tier" and "nested tier" and information about them
- 2.3 The type we use is "time-alignable," that is, everything is linked to the time it occurred.
- 2.4 Ignore the section on "templates." (You might find them useful in your own work later.)
- You will only be using video files (no audio-only files)
- In the first picture ("the ELAN window"), don't worry about the "waveform" line. You don't need to include it in your display.
- The rows across the lower third of the window are very important: Each row is a "tier" (pronounced "tir," as in the English "tear-drop"). You will always be entering your analysis on a tier, which links it to that specific point in the video.
- 2.3 "Selection" is the heart of microanalysis. You may have to make several tries to capture the selection you want, until you get it exactly right, but you will also get better and better at this skill.
- 2.4 Make sure the "selection mode" is NOT checked, because it makes your playback keys function differently!
- 2.5" Working modes": We will be using the (default) "annotation" mode. Please use this mode for your first assignment (not the "transcription" mode), so you can practice selecting small selections and playing them over and over.
- You can skip this information, that is, you won't have controlled vocabularies, parent tiers, etc.
- Note: 3.2 When you add your own tiers (using the "Add tier" window illustrated here), you only need to name your tier, unless you want to add your name as the "annotator."
- Most of chapter 4 is about the details of annotation and will be very helpful.
- 4.3 You won't need to know this section ("Subdividing an Annotation on a depending tier").
Exercise
The exercise for this week includes downloading and learning to use ELAN, creating a folder on your desktop to organize your course materials, and doing your first short ELAN assignment. Read the “User Guide for ELAN Linguistic Annotator” and watch the video "A Demonstration of Elan" before beginning! You will need to know this material to do the exercise. (And remember: this is hard work, but it will be worth it)
1. Go to the Max Planck Institute’s (MPI) webpage (https://tla.mpi.nl/tools/tla-tools/elan/download/) and select the appropriate download for your computer and install it (PC or Mac). Note: MPI seems to update ELAN frequently, but successive versions are compatible.
2. As suggested in the “Welcome and Course Summary,” create a "microanalysis course" folder on your desktop to save all of your work in for this course. In this folder, create sub-folders for each week of the course titled “Week 1” “Week 2” etc.
3. Go to the Dropbox folder named “Downloads: IMA online course.” Download and save the video "A Demonstration of ELAN" to the subfolder for Week 1 in the desktop folder you created. Watch this video; it will walk you through using ELAN. (Remember, in order to download the video there are two different procedures depending on how you access Dropbox. If you use the Dropbox link (at the top of this page) to access the video, you will need to right click on the file and select the “Download” option. If "Download" isn't one of the options in the pop up window then select "Open" and when the file opens right click on it and select "Save AS" and then save the file to the appropriate weekly folder. If you choose to go to Dropbox via the Dropbox icon on your desktop, use copy and paste to download the video; do not drag the files out of your Dropbox!)
4. Go back to the Dropbox folder named “Downloads: IMA online course.” In the sub-folder for Week 1, find the video file titled “Burning Pillow clip” and download and save it in the sub-folder for Week 1 in the desktop folder you created.
5. Refer to the instructions in the "User Guide for ELAN Linguistic Annotator" and the video "A Demonstration of ELAN" to do this assignment. Open ELAN on your computer. Go to “File” and select “New”. At the top of this new window you will see a box (with an arrow on the right). Select the course folder and then the Week 1 sub-folder you created on your desktop and you will see a list of any video files in that sub-folder appear in the window. Select “Burning Pillow clip.mp4” and then click the arrow on the right (the video file will then appear in the right box labeled “selected files”). Then select “OK” at the bottom of the window. This will open the video file “Burning Pillow clip” in your ELAN.
6. Before continuing, save this ELAN file in the Week 1 sub-folder in the course folder you have created on your desktop as follows:
- In your ELAN, select “File” at the top left corner above your video
- Then select “Save As”
- Next, in the "save as" window on the "save in" line, press the black triangle and scroll up until you find the Desktop and click on it
- Then find and double click to open your "microanalysis course" folder and Week 1 sub-folder
- Then under "file name," enter the name of your ELAN file as “Burning Pillow, Week 1” with a hyphen and your initials at the end (e.g. Burning Pillow, Week 1-ssj). When you click on "Save," this will save two files: An .eaf file with your work on it. (It will also automatically create a .pfsx file that links your .eaf annotation ELAN file with the .mp4 video file).
7. Now that your Burning Pillow clip file has been downloaded and saved in an ELAN file on your computer, begin by watching the video clip in the ELAN file. Explore the buttons below the video, as described in the "User Guide for ELAN Linguistic Annotator" pdf document (p. 10) , especially play/pause, frame forward and backward (>F and <F) and one-second forward and backward (1).
8. Now create two new tiers below the Default tier:
- Press "Tier" (fourth heading on the menu at the top of the screen)
- Select "Add New Tier"
- In the window that appears, in the blank box to the right of "Tier Name", write "Speaker" and then press the button "Add."
- Now, in the box next to "Tier Name", write "Addressee" and press “Add.” Then press “Close.”
- You will now have three tiers: Default, Speaker, and Addressee.
- OPTIONAL: Figure out how to hide and/or delete the Default tier.
9. Now do the assignment (in 10 below), following the directions in the “User Guide for ELAN Linguistic Annotator" pdf document (pages 9-10, 16, 22, & 24) for selecting, playing a selection, and annotating the selection. Remember, the video "Demonstration of Elan" demonstrated how to add tiers and get started with the assignment. Watch it again if you need a refresher on how to do this.
10. The assignment: Transcribe (i.e., annotate) the dialogue from 34 seconds to 46.5 seconds. Put the Speaker's words in annotations on the Speaker tier and the Addressee's words in annotations on the Addressee's tier. (Note that "mhm" counts as a word.).
In order to assist you in creating a transcription in your ELAN, we have already completed a transcription of the first few utterances of the Burning Pillow clip in an example ELAN (see the two files: “Burning Pillow, transcription-example.eaf” and “Burning Pillow, transcription-example.pfsx” in the Week 1 sub-folder in the Dropbox folder: “Downloads, IMA online course.” Download these two files to your Week 1 sub-folder on your desktop. Open the eaf file by double clicking on it; it should open because you already have the Burning Pillow clip in that sub-folder. Notice how the first few utterances of both the speaker and addressee have been selected and annotated.
Now, IN YOUR OWN ELAN FILE (i.e. the one you saved with your initials), go ahead and select and annotate these first few utterances of the speaker and addressee just as they have been done in the example ELAN. Redoing the transcription of these first few utterances in your own ELAN will give you a bit of initial practice in the procedures for selecting, annotating, and saving your annotations. You can look back at the example ELAN to check whether you have annotated these first few utterances accurately. Then, go ahead and transcribe the utterances that occur between 34 seconds and 46.5 seconds in the clip, again in your own ELAN (i.e. the one with your initials). It is a good idea to save your work from time to time as you are doing the transcription. When you are finished, or if you stop your work and want to close the ELAN file to take a break, be sure to click the “yes” button when you are prompted about whether you want to save any unsaved data.
11. Upload your .eaf and pfsx files (the ones with your initials) with the completed transcription to the Week 1 sub-folder in the folder: “Uploads, IMA online course.” (Remember, when uploading, click on the Dropbox icon on your desktop, find the folder named “Uploads, IMA online course,” and use copy and paste to upload your file(s) to the appropriate sub-folder--do not drag.) The deadline for uploading is midnight this Saturday evening in your time zone (February 11).
Why this video?
The "Burning Pillow clip" video shows two previously unacquainted university students in a psychology experiment.* The speaker was telling a real, close-call story to the other person, her addressee. They kindly gave their permission for others to see their video for teaching purposes. They were sitting across from each other but filmed in split-screen, with two cameras, so you see them as they looked to each other. You may find it strange to begin a course on therapeutic dialogues by focusing on a video of two students in a lab setting, but it illustrates a problem we will encounter throughout the course: In virtually all publicly available videos of therapy dialogues, the camera switches back-and-forth to the person who is speaking at the moment. We wanted to start the course with a reminder that a face-to-face dialogue is an interaction between two people.
Even an addressee who is "just listening" is constantly responding to and influencing the speaker. As you will see in Week 2, focusing on one individual at a time makes their interaction invisible. In week 3, you will document the actions of both the speaker and addressee in the "Burning Pillow clip" video, recording how precisely they fit what each other is doing. Did the addressee nod? Smile? Look skeptical? These actions would have influenced the speaker but are lost in speaker-only recordings. Unfortunately, later in the course, we had no choice but to use professional recordings with their speaker-only focus, although we have tried to choose those moments when both are visible. When that was not possible, keep your mind open to what the speaker may have been responding to that is unseen to us.
Indeed, you might find it interesting to cover the right-hand side of the screen the first time you watch the "Burning Pillow clip,” then watch the full interaction before you begin your exercise. That is not part of this week's exercise, but you may find the contrast useful for completing assignments the next several weeks.
In Week 13, you will get some good advice about making your own videos with both (or all) participants on screen all of the time.
* They were in the control condition of one of the experiments in Bavelas, J. B., Coates, L., & Johnson, T. (2000). Listeners as co-narrators. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 941-952.
Posting
Comparison to other course members' ELANS
1. Find other individuals’ ELAN transcriptions of the “Burning Pillow clip” in the "Week 1" sub-folder in the Dropbox folder named: “Uploads, IMA online course.” Download 2 or 3 of their ELANs (download BOTH the .eaf and .pfsx files for each individual's work) to your Week 1 subfolder in the course folder on your desktop. (Important: you must download their ELANs to open them. And, remember to copy and paste to download; do not drag files from the Dropbox.) Both the .eaf and .pfsx files for each individual must be downloaded and saved in the same location as the "Burning Pillow Clip" file so that the ELAN files will open and play.
2. Open the 2 or 3 ELANs and review their annotations.
3. Then, select one of the two or three ELANs to compare to your own. Compare the other individual’s annotations of the speaker and addressee’s utterances to your own annotations, noting any differences you find (i.e. things you or the other individual have left out or misunderstood).
4. Write a post (title it "comparing with...") to the discussion forum for Week 1 called "Postings on Weekly Assignments" on the course website. In this post discuss your comparison to this course member's annotations, discussing both agreements and differences in your annotations. The deadline for completing your comparison post is this coming Monday evening at midnight in your time zone (February 13).
PDF of Week 1 instructions
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