Arkansas 20

Listen to Arkansas 20, a 20-year-old man from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 20

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 22/12/1998

PLACE OF BIRTH: Pine Bluff, Arkansas

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: student/horticulture major/landscape assistant

EDUCATION: junior in college

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

The subject has never lived outside Arkansas. (At the time of this recording, he had spent two years in Fayetteville.)

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

Both sides of his family are from Monticello, Arkansas.

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): 08/11/2019

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Yes, so living in southern Arkansas, we’ve all had chickens, uh, growin’ up, so I was in 4-H; my sister was 4-H. So, we all had like bought a bunch of chickens. And so, we’ve always had like these, um, brown, uh, layers — they’re just very docile creatures. They’ll come up to you like dogs and say, “Feed me! Feed me!” Uh, they’re so funny. Um, but we got a rooster one time, a Rhode Island Red, and they’re like this tall. They’re gigantic. And, so, my daddy named him Big Sexy ‘cause — and I hated that name. I said, “No, we’re gonna name him Big Pretty.” But no, his name was Big Sexy. And so, um, he was evil, mean. He tried to spur everybody. And so, one day, uh, Momma was in her bathrobe. She went to go feed the chickens. And I was on the porch just waiting for her to get back ‘cause we had to go to school. And as she was walkin’ back, the rooster came up buh-behind her and spurred her right in the butt. And I fell off the porch laughin’. Oh, it was so funny. And then, um, so then he tried to spur me, he spurred my grandma, and then he tried to spur my sister in the face. And then, so my daddy saw that, took a piece of the firewood because we have our own wood stove because we’re in the Dark Ages apparently. And so he took one of that and went into the chicken coop and hit him in the head. Killed him. And that was the end of Big Sexy.

Um, another story about chickens is that, uh, we had another rooster. He was also very mean. He was named McDonald ‘cause he was white like the chickens that they used to kill for McDonald’s. And, so, he was so mean; he tried to spur me, spur me multiple times. So then we took a big bamboo pole and hit him in the head. And his eye kinda like went the opposite direction. But he lived, and then, um, he kept spurring people over and over again. And so my sister: She’s the chicken woman, the chicken wonder. She left him outside one night to let the owl eat him. So then we woke up the next morning; he was in pieces everywhere, just to get rid of him. Um, so, and then, also when you have chickens,; you have a lot of predators that come and try to eat your chickens. So one day my sister — I don’t know why she was out there so late — but she went out there with a flashlight, opened up the chicken coop, and the chickens were like up on their little roost things. And, um, so she walked in, and there was a possum eatin’ one chicken and then a skunk in there tryin’ to get another chicken. And she was, “Daddy! Come and kill them!” And so, um, he went out there, shot ‘em both. And, yeah, also we got coons that go in there, snakes. One time a snake tried to get into the chicken house. Um, we had an electric fence around it. Killed the snake. And then the chickens ate the chicken snake. So they got their little revenge. But, anyway, and there’s countless more stories about chickens and just livin’ in Arkansas, but that’s a few of the one’s I’d like to share today.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Ben Corbett

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 11/11/2019

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The subject’s jaw is relative slack.  /r/ is very strong, often overpowering previous vowels, and sometimes previous consonants (superb, square, mirror, her, there). Ending /g/ is dropped from compound words ending in -ing (calling, surprising, working, growing).  A schwa /ə/ (comma) sometimes precedes the monophthong /u/ [goose] (ou, rooster, goose, zooe, huge).  This schwa can also precede the vowel /i/ [fleece] (mean, me).  Words ending in -ile are pronounced with the diphthong /aɪ/ [price].  Vowel /ɑ/ [palm] becomes vowel /ɔ/ [cloth] (Arkansas, tall, walking). Diphthong /aʊ/ lengthens, suggesting a yod /j/ between the separate vowels (brown). Vowel /I/ [kit] approaches /i/ [fleece] (chickens, then). The second vowel in the diphthong /aɪ/ [price] sometimes drops completely (idea, side, required, five, times, time, outside, tried, implied). Vowel /e/ [dress] can become /I/ [kit] (then, when, fence, again, went). The /l/ almost disappears in the word “hold.”  The vowel /I/ [kit] lengthens (killed, lived, kit). When stressed, the diphthong in the word “no” can become /aʊ/ [mouth].  Short /ɒ/ [cloth] becomes the diphthong /aʊ/ [mouth] in the word “dog.” A schwa /ə/ (comma) sometimes precedes the diphthong /eɪ/ [face] (gave, plain). The ending /t/ drops in words that include it in a consonant cluster (first). Lastly, plosive consonants /b/, /t/, /d/, and /p/ receive extra percussive force (pieces, butt, bamboo, coons).

COMMENTARY BY: Ben Corbett

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 11/11/2019

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