Open Access

Rahaf Farag

• Computer-assisted transcription of speech is a basic methodical tool for linguistic studies. It is notoriously difficult to reconstruct spoken language by means of writing – even more so when it is embedded in interaction processes that are polylingual and poly­dialectal. The greater the difference between the writing systems and the less the ortho­graphic standardisation of non-standard varieties, the more difficult the reconstruction. This is also true for the transcription of Arabic-German talk-in-interaction: Arabic script (right-to-left) and Latin script (left-to-right) have opposing writing directions and the established methods to transcribe Arabic data are mostly, first and foremost, concerned with the written language, thus making the data much more difficult to curate. So how can we transcribe and translate Spoken Arabic in a convenient conversation-analytic manner? Which solutions do romanisation systems offer? Under what circumstances can transcrip­tion methods and corpus technology meet the needs of interaction-oriented research? How far do current practices support the sustainability and reusability of transcribed data? This book presents self-developed solutions for a systematic approach to Spoken Arabic transcription within polylingual contexts. The data stems from audio and video recordings of interpreter-mediated counselling sessions conducted via the telephone.