Australia 1

Listen to Australia 1, a woman in her 40s from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 40s

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1950s

PLACE OF BIRTH: Melbourne, Victoria

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: professor

EDUCATION: post-graduate degree(s)

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

This person has also lived in England.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

Her father was born in New Zealand.

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

RECORDED BY: Paul Meier

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 1999

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 Melbourne, which is in the state of Victoria in the very southern part of Australia — not as southern as Tasmania, I just have to correct myself there.  Um, I went to school in a state school. I went to teachers college after that. After that I went to university. After that I did another University post-graduate program — well, actually there’s about, ah, twenty-five years between the first and the last one of those.  Um, I’ve lived in England. I’ve traveled around Southeast Asia quite extensively. I’ve traveled around Europe fairly extensively as, um, [a] younger person.  I currently work in a university. I’m on a very odd project at the moment to set up a national institute of circus arts for Australia. This is not something I thought I’d be doing in this time of my life. But, ah, and it’s a funny thing to be telling people that you’re doing because people look at you. There’s no credibility whatsoever (strong laugh) if you tell them you’re, ah, establishing a circus school.  Um, I have two children. Ah, being one of, ah you know, [a] large group of late-life breeders amongst my friends, and so they’re quite young still.  Um, it’s a little bit…my mother’s…my mother was certainly born…I, I was the youngest child of a family of six children and there’s twenty-three years between my eldest brother and myself. And my m…so therefore my mother was quite, in her forties when she had me. And she was born in Australia and born in Melbourne. Um, her mother … but her mother I believe was born in Germany, but, you know, we’re talking last century. Um, my grandfather was, on my mother’s side, was about fourth generation Australian. My father was born in New Zealand, so every so often I say “wee” [laugh] instead of “small” or “little.” Um, and maybe sometimes have some sayings that are perhaps things I’ve picked up from my father. But he came to Australia, um, before the war, so that was a long time ago.  I remember one day … when my… one of my brothers, um, not my immediate brother, but the brother who’s probably about fifteen years older than me. But I remember he was a teenager and I was quite small and a magpie flew into the washing machine. We had just got a new washing machine and we had a copper — my mother used to wash with a copper and a pot stick and, um, a briquette heater. Right up until, oh, till I was quite grown up our hot water came from putting briquettes into a wood … wood fire, which we sometimes … we had a wood-fire stove as well as an electric stove. But we had this new washing machine, and it was very exciting and, um, a magpie actually flew into the washing machine and we couldn’t get it out of the, the laundry. And I remember as a small child being on the one hand really excited and on the other hand slightly terrified that this magpie was going to attack me; because magpies do attack. But I was small enough to remember that this older brother and I wrapped it in a towel and took it up to the backyard and we had quite a big…we had half an acre of…and, which wasn’t uncommon where I grew up to have a big garden. And we put the bird on the seesaw. And I really have this very strong memory of this magpie going up off the seesaw and flying out of the towel into the air.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Mitchell Kelly

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 15/01/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

If you are a dialect researcher, or an actor using this sample to develop your skill in the accent, please see my instruction manual at www.paulmeier.com. As the speaker in this sample is a unique individual, it is highly unlikely that she will conform to my analysis in every detail. But you will find it interesting and instructive to notice which of my “signature sounds” and “additional features” (always suggested only as commonly heard features of the accent) are widely used by most speakers of the accent or dialect, and which are subject to variation from individual to individual.

COMMENTARY BY: Paul Meier

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 10/11/2016

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