In my ENG470 class that I am taking at the University of Oregon this term, we have been tasked with a transcription project. We have been learning and discussing the Morant Bay Rebellion to shed more light on this crucial event in world history. Our current piece of the project is transcribing the Jamaican Royal Commission Report. The JRC Report contains every testimony given in court during the trial of Governor Eyre. It’s quite a gruesome report, telling of the horrific abuse happening during this rebellion. We have each transcribed multiple testimonies from the report and compiled them into one document to better analyze and understand the data stored in the stories shared.
We have turned to Voyant Tools; a database that helps you “read from a distance” and receive a better analysis of pieces of literature input into the software. I’m intrigued to see what words are most commonly said. There will obviously be lots of filler words, but I think it could be telling of what was the most common form of abuse, who was the main target, and what hate crimes everyone saw in person the most.
After looking through the first visual Voyant Tools showed me I realized that most of my previous questions couldn’t be answered without adding more filters and taking out all of the filler words from being included in the visual. It was still fascinating to see the repetitive terms and helped me see a bit more of the picture, but with more filters, I think we can learn even more.
This Voyant Tool helps paint the graphic and gruesome picture much better. This graph highlights every time these specific words were said: killed, died, beat, beating hung, hanging, shot and shooting.
Overall, I think the biggest things I learned were about the women testifying. If you read through the transcript you can see hundreds of examples of the men interrupting them, re-asking questions until they get the response they want, treating them as if they are slow and don’t know their story.
This is a common thing in today’s world. Women are still being treated this way; even in casual conversation women are treated as if they are slow, and have to prove their intelligence on subjects.
As a result of this treatment from men across all of history, women have developed filler words to stop men from interrupting them. If they don’t stop talking men can’t get a word in; which is the only way for women to speak their truths. This was very evident when looking through Voyant. The most common words in every transcription were always filler words to try and prevent the men questioning the women from interrupting them from sharing their story.