England 35

Listen to England 35, a 22-year-old woman from Bideford and Barnstaple, Devon, in southwest England. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 22

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1979

PLACE OF BIRTH: North Devon

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: white

OCCUPATION: hairdresser

EDUCATION: N/A

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

The subject spent time in Barnstaple, Devon. (The older spelling of Barnstable is rarely used now.)

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

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

RECORDED BY: Paul Meier

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 2001

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 at Barnstable hospital in North Devon. I went — I’ve lived in Bideford all my life.  Um, I went to Bideford College secondary school, and I went to a, um, a local primary school before that.  And I left school when I was 15.  And I started I had week off after my GCE exams, started work full time as a junior hairstylist in a salon.  And I went to college one day a week for two years to get my qualification in hairdressing.  And then after that I worked for another two years, part time, to, um, get my MPQ level three.  And then I came t- after five years of working in the same salon, I came to Barnstable and I worked in Salon Furturepath back on the strand for two years.  And now I’m currently working at Sarah [sic] in Barnstable, which I’ve been here now for a week and a half.  My, my grandparents are from here as well [sic] up in North Devon.  They were raised in Bideford; they both lived in Bideford for most of their life.  And they were born in Barnstable Hospital.  It’d probably be when my mum first met my stepdad, when I was 2, I remember I never really liked him, but, um, I had a tim [unclear] and he’d give me a lot of, uh, old coins to play with, and he was my best friend when he’d give me them, so that’s probably one of my youngest memories I would say.  A perfect day would be, um, I love Newquay, absolutely love Newquay in Cornwall and, um, Fishtall Beach [spelling?], and I think a perfect day would be when I was down there with my fiancé on a weekend.  We stayed in a, um, Fishtall Bay Hotel and it was just lovely.  My fiancé wants to be a policeman, so we’ll probably have our own house and children, very later on in the future ‘cause I don’t like them very much, so they won’t be for a while.  And, I, um, maybe imagine myself maybe teaching at a college as hairdressing, that’s what I’d eventually would like to do, just working my way, gaining experience, things like that.  My nan’s very broad; she uses words like, “How’s your knacken bowl [sic],” and I still don’t understand ‘em these days, but she’s really, really cool, and really Devonshire, so.  I would say for my job, I kind of have a different sort of voice.  When I’m at home with my family, you know, they miss a few words out, but you still know what they mean even if they do miss some things out, so.  Like they’ll say, “Ey, you over there!” or something like that you know or …”

TRANSCRIBED BY: Spencer Holdren

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

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The subject was working at a fashionable salon in Barnstaple, Devon, when she was recorded in the summer of 2001. She is a native Devonian but much younger than the previous four Devon speakers, and it is interesting to note the quite different dialect, which may sound more like contemporary Estuary speech of southeast England. There is no r-coloration and no dropped h’s. The traditional Devon sounds that can be heard comprise her treatment of the diphthong in half, past, laugh, etc., and the diphthong of I, time, private, etc. She is aware of the difference between her own dialect and that of her grandmother, who speaks, according to the subject herself, a very broad Devon dialect. For more information on British dialects, visit PaulMeier.com.

COMMENTARY BY: Paul Meier

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 2001

The archive provides:

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• Text of the speakers’ biographical details.
• Scholarly commentary and analysis in some cases.
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