California 4

Listen to California 4, a 24-year-old woman from Thousand Oaks, California, United States. 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: 24

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1981

PLACE OF BIRTH: Indianapolis, Indiana (but raised in Southern California)

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: N/A

EDUCATION: N/A

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

The subject was raised in Southern California (Thousand Oaks) from the age of 8. Before that, she lived in Northern California (San Ramon); Boston, Massachusetts; and Indianapolis, Indiana, where she was born.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

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

RECORDED BY: Joel Goldes

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 2005

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

‘K, um, I grew up in Thousand Oaks, California, but I was born in Indiana. Well, I lived in Indiana for the f– like about two years, and then I moved to, uh, Boston, Massachusetts, and I lived there till I was about 5, and then I moved to, uh, San Ramon, uh, in San Francisco, and I lived there for a couple of years, and then I moved to Thousand Oaks, when I was 8. And I’ve lived here ever since. My mom, um, grew up in Georgia, Savannah. She flew around a lot, um, er, traveled, grew up in different areas, because my grand’a’ was in the military. But mostly all throughout the South. And the same with my dad, Georgia. Mmm-hmm. Um, well, it was really fun. I hadn’t seen my grandparents in about a year and a half, so, and I’m very close to my grandparents. They’re, uh, my mom’s parents. And it was really fun because my mom was there, and, uh, my grandparents also were there, and my brother and my sister-in-law, and my five-month old niece and my two-and-a-half-year old nephew. So, we were all there, in one little house, [laughs] which was so fun, and we went, um … My grandparents live at a golf course, so we got to drive around in their golf cart, and go golfing and go swimming, and go to their — we went to their club, um, for Mother’s Day, and had brunch there. And hung out a lot, and just — my grandparents watch the news, a lot. CNN is always on, so I got to catch up with my world news. Um, and it was — it was really — it was too short, but I think my mom and I are gonna go back in July. So, for, my grand ‘a’s birthday’s July 25th, so I think we’re gonna make an effort to go see them a little bit more, take like quick trips. You know, we took the red-eye on Friday night, so we got in Saturday morning, and then we were there till, um … Tuesday we left. So, it was — I didn’t miss that much, and so that was good. So, we kind of want to do that. As they’re getting older, they’re not willing to come out here any more, so, we’re gonna try to make an effort to get to see them more, ’cause my Gram’s gonna be 83 in July.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Jacqueline Baker

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 24/01/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

Listen for strong glottal attack on initial vowels (e.g., “then I moved”); glottal fry at ends of phrases (e.g., “waiting for her,” and “red eye”); -ing endings pronounced as “-een” (e.g., “golfing” and “swimming”); generalized nasality, especially on vowels before or after nasal consonants (e.g., “parents” and “nephew”); intrusive “g” (e.g., “hung out”); and high rate of delivery.

COMMENTARY BY: Joel Goldes

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 2005

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.