California 19

Listen to California 19,  a 61-year-old man from West Hollywood, California, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 61

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 24/07/1962

PLACE OF BIRTH: East Hollywood, Los Angeles, California

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: computer technician

EDUCATION: high school and some college training

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

The speaker lived in Acapulco, Mexico, for about six months and later in Boston, Massachusetts, for several months. Both stays were brief and occurred when the participant was in his early to mid-fifties.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject speaks several languages but is a native speaker of English. His formative-language-learning years were spent in Southern California.

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

RECORDED BY: Amaia Villegas

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 08/08/2023

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Well, I was born in East Hollywood and raised in West Hollywood, uh, in Southern California. Uh, I supposedly spent my first year in Manhattan Beach, but I don’t recall it. But, uh, we were raised in a duplex on Havenhurst Drive: 1044 North Havenhurst Drive, near Crescent Heights and Santa Monica [Boulevard], right there in the heart of, what’s now, West Hollywood, its own municipality. Um, I remember we used to on Santa Monica Boulevard, there used to be, uh, train tracks. And, uh, I remember the last train going from Santa Monica to downtown. Might still be some remnant train tracks, or even a building. You can see a circular building off of Santa Monica where you s- where you could recognize that the train would turn into, and it was some sort of depot. Uh, I lived there all my childhood and my teenage years. And we moved out, I guess I was around eighteen when I finally got my own place — that would be the short story — in East Hollywood, closer to where I was born.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Amaia Villegas

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 09/08/2023

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY: N/A

COMMENTARY BY: N/A

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

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.