England 20

Listen to England 20, a 21-year-old woman from Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, in northeast England. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 21

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1978

PLACE OF BIRTH: Sunderland, Tyne and Wear

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: white

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: university

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

The subject lived for three years in North Yorkshire and currently lives in Newcastle.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject has slight nodules on her vocal folds and often uses an RP dialect for work.

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

RECORDED BY: Katerina Moraitis

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 23/02/2000

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 was born in Sunderland.  I moved to North Yorkshire for three years where I lived, had a very strong accent then, used to come home on the weekends to visit grandparents in Sunderland, go home, have a really strong accent, Sunderland accent, because it was such an easy accent to pick up.  Uh, I live right in the center of Sunderland, so obviously everyone has very similar accents but obviously i- it gets worse, huh, well stronger nearer the town when you, uh, uh, near the city center.  Um, I went to Monkwearmouth school where, um, my favorite subject was drama.  I got a part in a film when I was 14 that went to the BAFTA awards at London. Uh, and I got the main part for that, obviously.  The, my accent had to be toned down just because it was too strong and a lot of people didn- the said of lot of people in the other countries wouldn’t be able to understand it.  And then I went to film festivals, but obviously it just had to be dubbed.  Um, I went then to study drama and performing arts at Shiney Row College [spelling?] in Sunderland as well.  I did two years, A level and a B tech.  B tech performing arts and A level drama.  And then I started doing at university, um, two years ago; this is my third year, studying B honors and drama.  Um, I also have a job at American Express, working; uh, my accent has to change because you get marked down for dropping your accent.  You have to keep quite an RP accent all the way through the call.  But that’s quite difficult when, it’s all right if you’re just asking normal questions, but when yo- you get into a conversation with someone you feel that your normal accent’s just dropping straight through again.  You feel quite false talking like that all the time.  Um, I have, uh, two sisters and one brother.  And my family all from Sunderland.  But since I moved to Newcastle, they said that my accent’s changed.  And my mom said that it’s not half as strong as what it used to be, and I think it’s just because I’m mixed with a lot of people who have different accents.  So I think I tend to pick up a lot of accents from other people.  Not intentionally just, uh, words and things like that that I pick up from a lot of other people.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Brady Blevins

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 11/02/2008

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.