England 104

Listen to England 104, a 33-year-old man from Liverpool, Merseyside, in northwest England. 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: 33

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 22/08/1984

PLACE OF BIRTH: Liverpool, Merseyside

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: white/British

OCCUPATION: physiotherapist

EDUCATION: bachelor of science degree

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS: none

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject acknowledges that he has modified his speech in order to be understood more clearly by those unfamiliar with his dialect.

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): 24/03/2018

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

I grew up in Mughall, in Liverpool. Ehm. Got two brothers; Mum and Dad lived in Amfield, and I’ve — um, that’s probably about eight miles outside of the city center. And I’ve moved more centr’y in the last five years, for living close to the city center. I’ve got a — had a wide range of Liverpool accents, with different people from different parts, in a previous job that I did, when I was mixing with people on a daily basis. So you’d be working with people with stronger accents, people who would speak faster, people who would speak slower. Over the years, I’ve slowed my accent down, when I went to university, ’cause people couldn’t understand me when I first went there. So I used to tell what I thought were funny jokes, but nobody would laugh. And then when I got to know people a little bit more, they would tell me that it was because they never understood what I was saying. So then while I was in university, I impacted that even further when I took my accent out to Madrid for four months, when I was trying me best to speak Spanish. I thought that was me best hope, ’cause if I spoke English no one would understand me there either. So, I kept on trying to practice me Spanish, and I don’t know which one was best, English or Spanish. But I got by.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Flloyd Kennedy

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:

Subject has a clearly defined “Scouse” accent, although, in this sample, the characteristic speech tune that generally rises sharply to the penultimate word or syllable and then drops down is less noticeable, probably because he is either reading or carefully recounting his anecdotes rather than using relaxed conversational speech.  He mentions his understanding that Liverpool has a range of accents, differentiating them as people with “stronger accents” or “people who would speak faster [and] people who would speak slower.” This needs further investigation.

COMMENTARY BY: Flloyd Kennedy

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 02/04/2018

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.