District of Columbia 2

Listen to District of Columbia 2, a 20-year-old woman from Washington, D.C., United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 20

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 05/03/1998

PLACE OF BIRTH: Washington, D.C.

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Caribbean and El Salvadorian

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: sophomore in college

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

At the time of this recording, the speaker had been living in Detroit, Michigan, for five years.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject grew up in a Spanish-speaking household. She was raised bilingual.

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

RECORDED BY: Mack Marshall (under supervision of Deric McNish)

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 19/03/2018

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

It’s kinda embarrassing me, but it’s funny. So, I had — my mom had a baby brother; he’s 5 now. My mom had him 10 years after she had my other brother. So I had two before him, and this little gremlin [laughter]: I love him to death; he — but I understand why my mother thought I was a bad child [laughter]. Me and him are both Pisces; he’s literally born 15 days after me, and then the time span between us is exactly 15 years. So he acts just like me, and it’s annoying because we’ll sit — I will argue with the 2-year-old; I don’t care. He was talking to me like he was grown. So I was like, “You know what; I’ma [sic] talk to you like you grown, since you wanna do the same thing.” It’s OK. So, one day me and him was arguing, and then my mom comes upstairs. She’s like, “You stop arguing with your brother. He’s 2; this is nonsense. What are you doing? He barely understands you.” I was, like, nah, he’s smarter than you think he is; he understands me, ’cause he wouldn’t of started this. So, then, when my mom leaves the room, this little — mmm, so, what he decided to do was catch me while I was down. I was laying on the bed, minding my business on my phone. At the time, I had my hair in, like, really, really long twists. So, he jumps on top of my back and pulls my hair, and he’s out of reach, so I can’t reach him, and I’m like, “Ooo, you little evil child.” And he’s laughing ’cause he knows what he’s doing. And then, while he’s doing that, I either have to smack him off of me, roll him off of me, or smoosh him, and I’m like, all three of those options are not good options for me because, either way, I’m going to get in trouble because I damaged my [laughter] little brother. So eventually I just — I go with the very safe option, which is just screaming for help till my mom comes back upstairs. She’s like: “What the – what the hell is going on?” [laughter] And I’m like, can you just get your child off of me? And then she gets him off me, and the whole time he’s just staring at me, laughing. Little evil gremlin. Me and him are still best friends; he’s still my favorite.

[Subject speaks Spanish]: 
Uh, so, mi amiga, se llama _________, y ella estaba una — una chica muy bonita, tenía todos los novios, y todo eso. Y yo dijo porque tenía todo este niños a tras de ti y solo estamos en acuerda y me dijo, “yo no sé — yo no sé porque me gusta y todo esto.” Y una día ella me dijo “oh yo quiero que tu viene a la casa lugar conmigo.” Yo dijo, “OK, bueno.” No ella pregunta a mi mama. Ir de puede fui a la casa, y fui a preguntar a mi mama si la pude ir la casa de mi amiga. Y, a mi mama dije “no no no puedo porque yo no sabe la madre yo no sabe la familia y no sé si ese son bueno, bueno cosas que hacer. Yo estaba triste. …

[English translation: I had a friend; my friend’s name is _____, and she’s a really, really pretty girl, and she had all these boyfriends, and I didn’t understand why she had so many guys like walking behind her. So I asked her and she was a like, oh, I don’t know. I guess they just like me or something. And then we were friends. And then one day she asked me to go to her house and like a sleep over so we could go and play. And then what I ended up doing was telling her, oh, I’m gonna ask my mom. See what she says. I was so excited, and I went home and I asked my mom if I could go to my friend’s house, and she told me no, because I don’t know her parents; I don’t know her family that well; I’m not sure if that’s the best situation. So I was sad …]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Mack Marshall (under supervision of Deric McNish)

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 24/03/2018

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:

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• 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).

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