England 44

Listen to England 44, a 31-year-old woman from Kirkdale (Liverpool) and Manchester, in northwest England. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 31

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1970

PLACE OF BIRTH: Kirkdale, Liverpool

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: white

OCCUPATION: housewife

EDUCATION: convent high school

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

The subject moved to Manchester at age 22 and has lived in a variety of English cities, including Roehampton, a fashionable South London suburb, for the two years prior to this recording.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject is the wife of a famous footballer and currently lives a rather cosmopolitan life.

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 in Liverpool [lip smack] in a small place called Kirkdale, which is about two, three miles from the actual town center. Umm [lip smack], I am just about half a mile from the two football grounds, which is Everton, which is one side of the park, and Liverpool, which is the other side of the park. [lip smack] Umm, alfbe [unclear] I was raised there for twenty-three years till I decided to move to Manchester. Umm, which I have my own little place, and then I’m, I was up there with work as well. And then I met Terri, and then for the past two years we’ve been livin’ down in London. [lip smack] Umm, we hope to move on to America hopefully, or if not we might go back home; we might getit [unclear] to go back up north, which either way the football takes us. Umm [lip smack], I’m 30 years of age; I have a brother who’s, who’s 30 soon. Umm, I have a sister who’s 33, and she is a sister, practicing sister at the Royal Hospital in Liverpool. [lip smack] Ummuh, recently married, I have a little boy who’s 2; I have two step-children; one who is 8 (little girl called Robin), and a boy called Ashley, who’s 12. I see lots of them. At the moment they’re staying with me in London; they’re on holiday. Umm, where my mum, where my mum was raised, it was theeeee, they called Tenements, which are old blocks of flats, and they, they were all forever like they called them Bull Rings; that’s what they used to call them in Liverpool because they were shaped like a bull ring; the tenements would all round, and they always had gardens in the middle, and there was three of them next to one another. And that’s where my mum was raised. Umm, and I always remember my, my grandma; that’s where my grandma lived as well. We used to always go down and visit my grandma every Sunday ’cause she lived there till, god till she died. Lummm [lip smack], growin’ up [unsure] in a proper school like my school, my prim-, my nursery and my primary school were both together, and they were literally across the road from my mum and dad’s, my mum and dad’s house. Umm, recently it was the school and it was a hundred years old [lip smack], and they pulled it down the after it was a hundred years old, but they’ve rebuilt it again. Lumm [lip smack], and they’ve rebu- just to for better to update it because it was [laugh] such an old building, and then after that I went on to secondary school and I went to a convent school. I passed what was called, umm, an eleven-plus exam; we sat an exam in the primary school which, umm, uh, only so many in Liverpool, umm, will be rearin’ [unsure], so many of the girls will be put forward; um, myself and my sister passed the exam, hence the fact that we went on to, uhh, a school run by ah nuns and the, the Catholic organization, umm, which was very, was very good. We had lots of opportunities to go on. My sister went on to a university …

TRANSCRIBED BY: Meg Saricks

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:

Subject’s mother came from the “Bull Rings,” or tenement housing. She could be described as having a middle-class Liverpool dialect, reflecting that she was convent-school educated after passing her eleven-plus exam. As the wife of a famous footballer, subject England 43, her dialect has been somewhat modified further by the cosmopolitan life they lead. They were living in Roehampton, a fashionable South London suburb, at the time of this interview. Although modified, the essential Liverpool dialect features can all be heard. To learn more about the Liverpool dialect, visit PaulMeier.com.

COMMENTARY BY: Paul Meier

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

The archive provides:

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• Scholarly commentary and analysis in some cases.
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