Alberta 5

Listen to Alberta 5, a 48-year-old woman from Olds and other places in southern Alberta, Canada. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 48

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 07/10/1971

PLACE OF BIRTH: Calgary, Alberta (but raised in Olds)

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: White/Canadian

OCCUPATION: realtor

EDUCATION: high school

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The subject has lived in Alberta her whole life, mostly in small towns in the southern part of the province.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject had a father who spoke German to her as a small child, but she doesn’t recall any of the language herself.

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

RECORDED BY: Adam Lane Bergquist

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 27/12/2019

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 Calgary at the general hospital. I was, uh, with my biological mother until I was a year old, and then I was put up for adoption. And then my adoptive parents adopted me when I was 18 months, and we st- — were living in a place called Morrin, Alberta, when I was 18 months. I don’t even know if there was a store there; there was a school in Munson, and that’s where I went to school; that’s where I started kindergarten. …

We moved to, um, Innisfail, and — in my kindergarten year, we moved to Innisfail, and then we didn’t stay long there; we moved to Olds, Alberta. And that’s where I spent all the rest of my years until I graduated from high school. And then I moved to the ci- — I moved to Calgary. So I spent eight years in Calgary, and so I guess that would have been my urban time of my life; and then from there, I moved out to a place called Latham Area. So [it] wasn’t, it was just in the country, it wasn’t, it was 10-15 minutes from the nearest town slash village, and so I lived there for a number of years; and then Rosemary’s only 300 people, and that’s where I raised my boys. …

I guess the difference would be, um, the co- sense of community: would be the difference that I see from my time that I spent in an urban area, as opposed to rural. In a commun- in a rural community, it’s, everything is community-based. There’s, you know, there’s the t- the turkey dinners that you go to; there’s all the events, the sporting events for the children; everybody knows everybody, and you just kinda feel that sense of community all the time. …

In my growing up? Yup. It would definitely be auction sales. [Subject laughs.] My dad was an auctioneer, and so we spent a lot of time traveling on weekends to auctions. And that would be estate auctions for the most part; it wasn’t just, um, [clicks tongue] like a typical auction now is, you know, a bunch of stuff on a Saturday afternoon, but he would do estate auctions or farm auctions, so that was probably my favorite. …

Yeah, my parents didn’t put any influence on grammar, pronunciation; um, I don’t say my I-N-Gs, ings and ongs, sing song; like I’ll say “sin’ a son’” all the time, and now my children do it. S- [laughs] So that’s — my friends make fun of me all the time. [Subject laughs.] So that’s unfortunate, you know, that they didn’t, you know, I watc- I have a good friend that’s a speech therapist, and I think, “Oh, maybe they should have done some work with me.” [Subject laughs.] But, anyway, that would probably be the only thing.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Adam Lane Bergquist

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 07/07/2020

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The subject has spent most of her life in rural southern Alberta. Specific European influences seem muted, perhaps on account of her living in different small communities around southern Alberta throughout her life. A few markers may be idiolect-based and not common to other southern Alberta Caucasian/White accents and are noted at the end. Note the following key characteristics:

A raised tongue position results in an increase in greater consonant dentalization and narrower range of vowel sounds noticeable in words such as “community” [kˈmjunəɾi].

[ɪ] pulls down towards [ɘ] or [ə]; examples: “difference” and “influence.”

Syllable truncation occurs on words like “community” and “parents” [ˈpɛɹn̩s].

Nasal vowels, also related to a raised tongue, may be heard in the pronunciation of “and” and “any.”

Terminal rising intonation is especially prevalent when describing or filling in details on a subject; falling intonation indicates the end of the description or response.

A shift of [aʊ] to [ʌʊ] occurs on MOUTH words and greater rounding can be heard on [u] (GOOSE) words. This is heard in “out to” and “school.” (This is a typical Canadian marker.)

Medial and final t’s are more present in reading than in free speech but may be heard in “favorite” and “didn’t,” and in “unfortunate” but not “hospital.” (This is also typically Canadian.)

COMMENTARY BY: Adam Lane Bergquist

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 07/07/2020

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.