Transcribing interlanguage: The case of verb-final [e] in L2 French

This chapter aims at shedding some light on the place of transcription in the data
interpretation process. More specifically, it focuses on the example of verb-final [e]
in oral second-language French, which causes interpretation problems when con-
text does not provide disambiguation cues. Through an analysis of three studies on
this phenomenon (Herschensohn 2001; Prévost 2007b,a; Granget 2015), displaying
a variety of theoretical frameworks (generative versus functional) and transcrip-
tion options (written- and spoken-centric approaches), I show that transcription
choices, whether made intuitively or in a theory-constrained manner, are often
problematic as they entail an early categorization of data, even before data coding
and analysis, thereby introducing an interpretive bias (Mondada 2007). Finally, I
draw conclusions and offer suggestions regarding best transcription practices.