T is a transcription of E if and only if:

(1) E and T are documents. (It follows that E and T each contain marks.)

(2) A reading of a document interprets the marks in that document as instantiating a sequence of types:

(a) The reading identifies some marks as constituting tokens.

(b) The reading assigns a total order to the tokens.

(c) With each token it identifies in the document, the reading associates a type.

(d) The sequence of tokens, taken together with the token–type mapping, generates a sequence of types.

(3) Some reading of E and some reading of T exist, which generate the same sequence of types.