Arkansas 15

Listen to Arkansas 15, a 42-year-old woman from Van Buren, Arkansas, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 42

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 17/01/1977

PLACE OF BIRTH: Van Buren, Arkansas

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: occupational therapist in a nursing home

EDUCATION: master’s degree in occupational sciences

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

The subject also lived in Alice, Texas.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

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

RECORDED BY: Ben Corbett

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 27/09/2019

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

OK, well, well, that was a few years ago. My husband was — we’d been looking for houses for a while, and I’d seen several that I thought was good enough and we could move into. But my husband’s so hard to make a decision and takes so long that I was like, “Well, this is never gonna happen.” But we were living in the house trailer, and s-so we start smelling something. And there was a dead cat that had got in our ventilation system. And we lived there probably two months with that dead cat. And finally, I was like, “I’m gonna move into a motel if we can’t — if we don’t find a house pretty soon.” And we found a house that weekend, and we’ve been living there since. So, that’s how we finally moved out of the trailer.

[The subject and her friend, Arkansas 13, then speak about their plans to run a 5K race.]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Ben Corbett

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 03/10/2019

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The /g/ consonant in -ing ending words is uniformly dropped (suffering, working, relaxing, smelling.). The consonant /r/ is strong and lengthened, and often overpowers its previous vowel (Sarah Perry, nurse, superb, early, nearer, her). The word “yellow” substitutes a schwa /ə/ (comma) for the unstressed ending /ou/ (goat). In some words in which the /ou/ (goat) diphthong is stressed, the subject inserts an intermediate /a/ before the diphthong, almost turning said diphthong into /aʊ/ (mouth)(go, so).

The diphthong /eɪ/ (face) becomes /aɪ/ (price) (plain, made, name). The “ɪ” vowel in the diphthong /aɪ/ drops, becoming /a/ (path) (implied, idea, finally, side, time, wiped, night, fire, time, find, I’d, while).

The /u/ vowel (goose) often receives extra emphasis and is joined by a schwa (ə) before it (two, to, duke). Words that would often be phonated with the /ɑ/ (palm) vowel have their long vowels switched to /ɔ/ (cloth) (strong, office, job, long, thought).

The word “you” substitutes a schwa /ə/ (comma) for the /u/ (goose) sound. The ending /t/ sounds in some one-syllable words drops and is replaced by a glottal stop /ʔ/ (goat, foot). The word “old” drops its ending /d/ sound. The work “district” drops the ending /t/ sound and replaces it with /k/.

The /æ/ (trap) vowel lengthens in the word “cat.” Initial /g/ and /d/ consonants receive extra stress.

COMMENTARY BY: Ben Corbett

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 08/10/2019

The archive provides:

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• 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).

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