Arkansas 27

Listen to Arkansas 27, a 60-year-old man from Little Rock, Arkansas, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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Note: This sample is intended for mature audiences only. In his unscripted speech, the subject tells a graphic story about a hunting trip.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 60

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 22/09/1959

PLACE OF BIRTH: Little Rock, Arkansas

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: white

OCCUPATION: independent insurance agent

EDUCATION: BA in business administration

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

The subject attended college in Fulton, Missouri.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

Both his parents were Arkansas natives: his father from Eudora and his mother from Warren.

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): 05/02/2020

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 blood of your first deer on your face: Um, I know it as an Arkansas tradition. Um, I don’t know if it’s carried on in other places. But this was specifically in southeast Arkansas.

So growin’ up, uh, my father was an independent insurance agent like I am, and he had, uh, customers all around the state, primarily in the road construction industry. And this particular customer from Hamburg, Arkansas: He would invite us to come deer hunting every Thanksgiving. And so we would — after Thanksgiving meal — we’d load up in our car. Dad would drive us down to outside of Hamburg to an area called Promised Land. Honest to goodness, there is a Promised Land, Arkansas. They have deer camp set up with all these trailers and so forth, and being a young kid, I was probably somewhere between 10 and 12 when this happened. So it’s probably early 70s. And we go to the camp, and it’s a bunch of old crusty, old men, and it’s male stuff, as you can imagine a male deer camp out in the middle of the woods would be.

And so, uh, I’m at a deer stand the next morning, with my dad, and Mr. Clark is at the next deer stand down the road, and it’s cold and it’s early and bored, and I’ve never shot a deer before. And all of a sudden, I see a deer crossing the road. And so I pulled the rifle up my father had me using and got the scope up to my eye and looked at it, then thought OK, and I squeezed the trigger. And apparently I hit the deer, but the deer did not fall. It ran off into the woods. So Mr. Clark down the road: He heard the shots. So he comes outta his stand; we come outta our stand, and we kinda meet down the road. And Mr. Clark gets all over me ‘cause he says that was too far of a shot for me to take. He was about to squeeze the trigger. And he was a little bit upset with me. I think he was pulling my leg. But he went back and stepped it off, and it was really a long shot. I probably shouldn’t have taken it.

Now we have to go find the dear. So we traipse off a little bit; we see the blood, so it’s been hit. And we’re probably maybe forty yards into the brush, into the trees. And there’s this doe laying on the ground still alive, just laying there like it’s, uh, sleeping, or just resting. And so, uh, another part of Southern indoctrination: You get to go ahead and kill the deer. So he said, “All right, stand back and pop her off, boy.” So I step back, pull the rifle up, and hopefully, quickly, mercifully ended the deer’s life with as little pain as possible.

So, we’re out in the middle of the woods, and it’s time to field-dress the deer, so we can get the remains back to the camp and get it, uh, skinned and quartered and preserve the meat and so forth. And so Mr. Clark takes over at this point, and he takes out a big knife, and he starts gutting the deer. And he slits down the belly and starts removing all the insides and so forth. And so this doe — female deer’s on her back with her insides just splayed open. And Mr. Clark’s down on his knees, doin’ everything. And apparently my shot had gone through the lower intestine because it had ripped the bowel apart and all sorts of stuff. And I had totally forgotten about this blood on the face of your first deer. And I’m just wide-eyed over having killed my first deer. And Mr. Clark says, “Boy, get over here and help me hold this leg back.” So I reach over Mr. Clark’s shoulder with my right arm to grab the deer’s right rear hind leg. And he takes both hands down into the bloody cavity of the deer and scoops up everything that he can, blood included and everything else floating around in there, and lifts then both up over his shoulder right into my gaping mouth and face. And my eyes — it’s just dripping down my face; my Dad’s beaming with pride. So, the tradition is you have to wear that blood on your face the entire day. A rite of passage for a young deer slayer.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Ben Corbett

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 05/02/2020

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

/r/ is very strong and often lengthened (cure, superb, required, nearer, morning, Mr. Clark). The diphthong /eɪ/ (FACE) experiences two changes: It can be shortened to the monophthong /e/ (DRESS) before both voiced and unvoiced consonants (made, male, take, Jay), or it becomes /aɪ/ (PRICE) (Thanksgiving, state, indoctrination).

Note the monophthong-ization of /aɪ/ (PRICE) to /a/ (BATH) (liking, implied, wiped, idea, five, invite, drive, eye, I’ve, find, alive, insides, hide, pride).

The subject changes the vowel /ɒ/ (LOT) to /ɔ/ (THOUGHT) (dog, office, thought, cloth, gone, on). In addition, the subject inserts a schwa /ə/ (COMMA) before several vowels: /i/ (FLEECE) (be, see, squeezed), /u/ (GOOSE) (goose, too, duke, tune), and /oʊ/ (GOAT) (so, goat). Lastly, short vowels /ɪ/ (KIT) and /ʊ/ (FOOT) are slightly lengthened (kit, woods).

COMMENTARY BY: Ben Corbett

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 17/02/2020

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