Australia 31

Listen to Australia 31, a 27-year-old woman from Perth, Western Australia. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 27

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 09/06/1988

PLACE OF BIRTH: Perth

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Indigenous Australian (Noongar)/African-American/Cherokee Indian

OCCUPATION: student and former mine worker

EDUCATION: university

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

The subject has not lived outside her region for more than six months.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

She has close contact with her African-American family, who live in Alabama, in the Unites States. After speaking with them on the telephone, the subject exhibited many American Southern features in her speech. Also, at the time of this recording, the subject had completed one year of voice and speech training.

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

RECORDED BY: Linda Nicholls-Gidley

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 09/10/2015

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

…and I’m Wongi, Yamatji, Noongar, Gitja from Perth. I’m from five girls. My Mum is proper deadly, and she’s a big lawyer and a single mum — um, worked hard. Wanted to, found acting at the age of, you know, I was in high school, year 10. Fell in love with it; um, wanted to build my confidence and then, ‘cause I was originally wanting to be a singer — thought I was gonna be a gospel singer. And then I went to Ab Theatre, in Perth, and um, with my twin, who reckons she’s better than me, but I’m eight minutes older, but she’s all right. Then what happened? Then I didn’t know what I wanted to do and I traveled the world with my family, and I went and worked in the mines and then I came back to Perth. Went to, um [laughs], I went to ACPA for a year, and then I auditioned for NIDA and I got in. And now I’ve, it’s been one bloody hell of a journey. Came in with this quiet little voice, ‘cause I didn’t wanna intimidate people, ‘cause I was scared they wouldn’t like me, ‘cause I was the only black fella there, and here I am.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Linda Nicholls-Gidley

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 09/10/2015

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

Subject uses / d͡ʒɹ/ for “dr” (dress) and / t͡ʃɹ/ for “tr” (trap, tried) and /ʃt͡ʃɹ/ or /st͡ʃɹ/ for “str” (street, stressed, strut, strong).

Following alveolar consonants, the treatment of yod is inconsistent. Notice /dʉːk/ (duke) and / t͡ʃʉːn/ (tune).

Final /t/ may be held (jacket, vet, goat) or in consonant clusters such as /kt/, /nt/, and  /st/, which may be left out entirely (district, treatment, first).

If followed by a word beginning with a vowel, the /t/ may be tapped (that area, put on, ate a, strut around, lot of).

Medial /t/may also be tapped (deserted, waiting, beautiful).

Lastly, /ŋ/ in /-ing/ suffixes may be replaced by /n/ (stroking, singing, paying).

COMMENTARY BY: Linda Nicholls-Gidley

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 12/10/2015

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.