Arkansas 3

Listen to Arkansas 3, a 23-year-old man from North Little Rock, Arkansas, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 23

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1977

PLACE OF BIRTH: Little Rock, Arkansas

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: When recorded, the subject was a senior drama student at university.

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

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

He is aware that his vocal delivery is somewhat “monotone,” and he is working on trying to inject a little pitch variation into it.

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

RECORDED BY: Mavourneen Dwyer

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 2000

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 Little Rock, Arkansas, and I lived there until I was 2 years old, and then I moved north, uh, to North Little Rock just across the river. Uh, I was, I was raised in North Little Rock all my life. Uh, my parents: Uh, one was born in Alma, Arkansas, and the other was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. I am 23 years old. I attend the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Uh, I’m a senior, uh, about to receive my degree in drama, and now read some of the “Rainbow Passage.” [Subject reads a short selection from the “Rainbow Passage.”] I have one brother who’s 19 years old and is a student at Hendrix University in Conway. I have one sister who is – will be 18 in June. Uh, she’s a senior in high school at North Little Rock and plans on attending Baylor University or the University of Arkansas. Uh, my mother lives in North Little Rock, with my grandmother. And I have a grandmother who lives in Alma. My father, uh, my mother and father are divorced. My father now lives in Austin, Texas, where he’s an attorney for a computer corporation. Um, the earliest remembrances I have of, of my childhood were, were in a house in the heights in Little Rock, before I moved to North Little Rock. Uh, I remember playing in the front yard. Um, I just remember running around in the front yard. That’s all that I really remember. Um, and then my next memories are of my house that I, I mainly grew up in, in North Little Rock. I remember how, how in the back yard was all woods, when I moved there. And now how, as far as the eyes can see, in my back yard, it is houses and car dealerships and, uh, interstate and so forth. Um, I remember Christmases as a kid, probably differently from other children, because, um, my Christmas presents were never wrapped. They were just put under the tree. That was fine with me. It saved me the time of having to unwrap my presents. Uh, but I always wondered why Santa Claus wrapped other kids’ presents and didn’t wrap mine. Uh, I thought that was kind of funny. Uh, Christmas Eve was always the hardest time for me to go to sleep ’cause I was always so anxious about what I would be getting in the morning. And I’d probably wake up around 4 a.m. and, and go downstairs and see what I’d gotten. I remember having a dream one Christmas Eve, that I wo– that I’d woken up too early, and had caught Santa Claus in the act, and he was – he was very upset with me for some reason. I remember that turning into a nightmare. And I remember trying to stay asleep longer, past – in years past, after that dream. Um, I remember going into mom and dad’s bedroom and waking them up at the crack of dawn, and they, they usually did not want to get up so early. But, uh, th– those are mainly good memories, about the family being together, and, uh, and how everyone had that morning together. And it was really happy because everyone was getting presents.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Jacqueline Baker

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 01/10/2007

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The “i/e” reversal is evident in words like “friends,” “get up” and “getting.” Medial consonants and consonant clusters disappear in words such as “Santa,” “interstate,” “under” and “probably.” Also, the final consonant is left off in the word “band.” The speaker pronounces the words “trying” and “playing” as one-syllable words. The dialect is rhotic, and the pronunciation of “ar” in “Arkansas,” “yard” and “car” sometimes tends to rhyme with “core” or “sore.” The “a” substitution for the “aI” sound happens quite often in words such as “finds,” “tried,” “ideas,” “size,” “why,” “my” and “kind.” However, longer words like “horizon” and “nightmare” do receive the “aI” treatment. Also, observe that the vowels in the words “flood” and “hood” (childhood) are lengthened.

COMMENTARY BY: Mavourneen Dwyer

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 2000

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.