England 5

Listen to England 5, a woman in her 50s from Lancashire, in northwest England. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 50s

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1950s

PLACE OF BIRTH: Lancashire County

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: white

OCCUPATION: N/A

EDUCATION: N/A

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

The subject moved to London at age 20, and was living in Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States, when recorded.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

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

RECORDED BY: Rena Cook

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 1999

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Uh, my name is Jo Clayton. I’m British. At the moment I live in Tulsa, in Oklahoma, but I come from, Lancashire; actually I was born in Lancashire, and then moved to London, which is in the south of England, about … when I was about 20. I don’t think I have any – well I do have – I probably have one here. The most challenging thing about living here is the hot weather. And it’s a real challenge. Um, I’ve found that the people are very very friendly, extremely friendly, and I’ve enjoyed all the tennis here. Um, shopping, is just, it drives you crazy. [unclear] Both ways, both ways. Having to drive, er, not being able to walk, um, or use cycle paths, which they don’t have here, having to cycle on the road. Well, I had a job in, I had a job to go to in London. But I had no where to live, so I was going to live at the, uh, YMCA. No, the Y, the women’s hostel, for a couple of days until I found … no, I had a hotel to go to, and then had I not found anywhere I would have gone to, uh, a youth hostel, for a few weeks. But on the way down on the train, I had, I had lunch and started talking to the lady next to me, whose daughter lived in London, and who was moving out of her flat. So she asked me to go, um, go along and meet her flat-mates, which I did, and I took her place. So I just found, really luckily, I found a place to live, immediately. So it was just a stroke of luck, and had I not had lunch on the train, I wouldn’t have met her.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Chloe Ritter

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

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

Subject has just faint traces of Lancashire (the “flat” Northern “a,” for example), but in the main has adopted Received Pronunciation. There is no trace of America in her speech.

COMMENTARY BY: Rena Cook

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 1999

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.