Australia 28

Listen to Australia 28, a 53-year-old woman from Sydney and Tasmania, Australia. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

Both as a courtesy and to comply with copyright law, please remember to credit IDEA for direct or indirect use of samples. IDEA is a free resource; please consider supporting us.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 53

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 08/12/1960

PLACE OF BIRTH: Bondi Junction, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Chinese-Australian

OCCUPATION: performer

EDUCATION: bachelor of arts degree

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

Subject was born and raised in Sydney, and left at the age of 23 to spend several years in Hobart, Tasmania. She then moved to Brisbane, Queensland, where she has lived ever since.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

Her first language was Cantonese, which she spoke solely until the age of 3, when she began to learn and speak English.

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

RECORDED BY: Flloyd Kennedy

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 13/06/2014

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH:

[partial transcription]: wɛ̈l h̝ɪ̝ə˘z ə ˈstɔːri fɔː ju̞. ‖ sɛːɹə pɛˑɹəi wɒ̽z ə ˈvɛt̚n̩ɹɪ nɜːs hɜ̆əd bin ˈwɜːkɪŋ ˈdaəli æt ən ʌʊld zuˑ | ɪn ə dɪˈzɜtəd ˈdɪstɹɪkt əv ðə ˈtɛɹəˌtɹə̝i ‖ sʌʊ ʃi wəz ˈvɛɹi ˈhæpɪ tə staːt ə njʉː dʒɒb æt̪ə səˈpʰɵːb ˈphɹaɪvɪt pʰɹakt̪s̩

TRANSCRIBED BY: Flloyd Kennedy

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 30/06/2014

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Oh, OK, so, I was born in Bondi Junction in Sydney, Australia, in 1960. I went to a, uh, you know, local school. Then I went to university, studied … things: arts, economics. And, I, when I was about 23, I went to Hobart to live in Tasmania. And, uh, later I moved up to Brisbane. Er, I work in the performing arts and, ehm, have a cat – very nice place here, nice cat. The other – yesterday – I was, um, tst, sorting out my underwear while I was, ah, unpacking the laundry basket and I threw my underwear into the underwear shelf. And then I heard “meow.” And it was my cat, sleeping in the underwear shelf, who was most offended that I was throwing smalls at her. She went “neow” and then looked at me like – “are you gonna keep throwing things?” and I went “mm” and so she’s jumped out, sort of like stalking off, like that. Yes, mm-hmm. I do — I am a performer, and I have had a clown character, a grandma, a Chinese grandma who speaks something like this: “Hurrow everybody, how are you? Grandma here! I still got all my teeth. Well, almost all my teeth, all except one. I lost that the other day – OK?” OK, so that – is go … but that’s really not a true accent of, it’s kind of an exaggeration of people I’ve known. Uhmmm. What else? I have – a – a woman who was hearing-impaired from the United States told me that I have got a Chinese-English accent in that I cut – she reckoned I cut it, cut off the ends of d’s . For example that — I’ll exaggerate a bit — that I say “goo” instead of “good.” I’ve not noticed myself saying “goo” instead of “good,” but it’s possible. There wasn’t a “good” in the passage that I read for you …

TRANSCRIBED BY: Flloyd Kennedy

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 13/06/2014

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The subject speaks with General Australian phonemes; however, the influence of (tonal) Cantonese is audible in the intonation, which has sharper rises and falls in pitch that the more smoothly undulating Australian speech tune. Her oral posture involves a slightly retracted jaw and high tongue position in close proximity to the velum, resulting in some nasalization of sounds.

COMMENTARY BY: Flloyd Kennedy

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 25/08/2014

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.