Arkansas 7

Listen to Arkansas 7, a 23-year-old woman from Harrison, 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): 03/01/1978

PLACE OF BIRTH: Harrison, Arkansas

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: When recorded, the subject had just graduated college with a B.A. in drama.

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

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

Her voice tends to reflect the “vocal fry” quality that has become characteristic of many contemporary females in her age range. Interestingly, when the subject is fondly recalling happy childhood scenes near the Buffalo River, her voice takes on a clearer tone and she loses her “fry.” Both her parents were born and raised in Arkansas.

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): 15/02/2001

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’m 23 years old. I was born in Harrison, Arkansas, and — January 3rd of 1978. My parents are both from Harrison. And, uh, I have two older brothers, both married. I grew up in Harrison and went to school there. I never moved until I came to college, um, after I graduated high school in 1976. I’d never been out of — I’d always had the same bedroom until then, so, it was quite a change to move just an hour and a half west of there. Um, I go to school at the University of Arkansas. I’m a drama major and a Spanish minor. I’ll be graduating in May, and I hope to do theater work. I’d like to be paid to act, in some capacity. Um, what else about my family? I, uh, my father is a retired politician. My parents both retired, just this past December; after serving as, uh, the county clerk and the deputy clerk for, uh, 24 years. And my father also owns a farm, where he raises beef cattle. So, trips to the farm were a fun thing, when I was younger. That’s where we went and got our Christmas trees. And, um, I would pick them out, and my dad would cut them down. And, we would bring them home and my mother would complain that they were too big. Because they always look a lot taller in the field than they do when you get them in the house. And so they would double over on the ceiling and we would have to cut the top out or something. And so, she gave us the rule that we could never get any trees taller than my father was. But … so that’s one of my memories, from growing up, and the farm. And getting to feed baby cattle, from out of the bottle, things like that.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Jacqueline Baker

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 30/09/2007

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The “i/e” substitution is evident in words like “Memphis,” “ten,” “sentimental,” and “friends.” Middle consonants are occasionally left out, as in the word “mirror” and “twenty.” The “d” in “accordingly” is glottalized. Occasional Arkansas regionalisms creep into her speech, although she has obviously decided to smooth them out to produce a more Standard American sound. Thus we hear “git” (get), “ketch” (catch), and “thang” (thing) when she is more relaxed and talking about her childhood memories.

COMMENTARY BY: Mavourneen Dwyer

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 15/02/2001

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.