Iran 3

Listen to Iran 3, a 45-year-old woman from Tehran, Iran, who has also lived in the United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 45

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1957

PLACE OF BIRTH: Tehran, Iran

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Iranian (exact ethnicity unknown)

OCCUPATION: school secretary

EDUCATION: Subject studied engineering at a college in California, in the U.S.

AREA(S) OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The subject has lived in the United States since the age of 19 or 20, and at the time of the interview was living in Kansas City, Missouri.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject studied English as a second language as a child in Iran, and after high school she studied English at some American schools in Tehran.  Subject enjoys films in English and made a practice of listening to news broadcasts in order to learn colloquial American English.

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Theresa Buchheister (under the supervision of Paul Meier)

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 01/12/2002

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

I was born in Tehran, Iran. Um, actually today is my birthday, forty-five years ago. And I was raised there. My family, my father and my mom, they were from northeast of Iran. Umm, all of her parents, relatives used to live there. And, but, we lived in Tehran and we raised in Tehran. Uh, but my best memory that I have was uh going to that city all summer. Uh, the whole summer as a vacation and to spend times with my cousins and um and aunts and uncles. In Iran we had English as a second language. It just like basically over here that they teach you there Spanish or French in classes. Basically we learned more uh words uh vocabulary and very small grammars, like, “this is a pen, that is a door…” Those kind of things. Uh, when I was uh after I graduated from High School I had planned to come to United States, and I start taking some English classes at English, American schools. And, uh, I had a teacher named Mr. Carter, at that time. I remember him. I took about, uh, one year of grammars and then I came over here. And of course when I came here first the accent was very hard for me to understand because basically what we learned in Iran was English not American and the other thing that was very weird for me I did notice that most of the people they weren’t using the whole grammar they were sort of eating the words and it was hard, like you had to get used to it. And someone gave me an advice if you want learn a better English you should listen to the news. In Iran we have different kind of languages. … Farsi’s not just the only one, …but I just knew how to speak Farsi, but if you go to different kind … different part of country you see Turkish, Kurdish,even when you went to my parents’ home town they had their own accent – they had their own vocabulary sometimes which if for someone who is not used to their culture when they went to that city if they asked to give me a match and used different kinds of words [indistinct] you were kind of excuse me what did you say. So it just … you can see lots of different languages. They have all kinds of religions but the majority is Muslim. Shi’ite. [Subject speaks in Farsi and then translates.] Today is a beautiful day, and I am very happy to be here.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Theresa Buchheister and Paul Meier

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

In her accent, it is difficult to firmly pin down any signature sounds. She sometimes changes “kit” vowels to “fleece” vowels and her “w” to “v”; she rarely aspirates her voiceless plosives. And before many words beginning with “s,” she adds a shwa (as in United uh-States). The most notable change is her grammar, as she uses improper tenses and few pronouns.

COMMENTARY BY: Theresa Buchheister (under the supervision of Paul Meier)

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

The archive provides:

• Recordings of accent/dialect speakers from the region you select.
• Text of the speakers’ biographical details.
• Scholarly commentary and analysis in some cases.
• In most cases, an orthographic transcription of the speakers’ unscripted speech.  In a small number of cases, you will also find a narrow phonetic transcription of the sample (see Phonetic Transcriptions for a complete list).  The recordings average four minutes in length and feature both the reading of one of two standard passages, and some unscripted speech. The two passages are Comma Gets a Cure (currently our standard passage) and The Rainbow Passage (used in our earliest recordings).

 

For instructional materials or coaching in the accents and dialects represented here, please go to Other Dialect Services.