England 52

Listen to England 52, a man in his 60s from Somerset, in southwest England, who has also lived in Bristol and Devon. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 60s

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1930s

PLACE OF BIRTH: Cardiff, Wales (but raised in Somerset)

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: white

OCCUPATION: retired mechanical worker

EDUCATION: N/A

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

The subject moved to Somerset shortly after birth, where he lived until age 16, when he joined the Navy. After age 21, he lived in Wellington, Somerset; Taunton, Somerset; and Bristol. In his 30s, the subject moved to north Devon.

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): 07/2002

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

There again I was then, I was born in Cardiff in Wales and then moved down to Somerset, uh, at a very young age. Uh, I was only born in Cardiff because parents were down there and father’s family were a Devonshire family anyway. So I moved down here, and there I lived until I joined the navy at 16, 16 and a half. Um, I came out of the navy at 21, and during the war years, of course, and, uh, then after that it’s just going to work, and I’ve done mechanical work most of the time until I retired maybe ten years ago. Um, I worked in Wellington in Somerset, I worked in Taunton in Somerset, I worked in Bristol, Avon, which is the city and county of Bristol, then, but it’s Avon now, of course. Uh, then I moved from here down to North Devon. Been here nearly thirty-five years. And then so you got Littleham, just outside Bideford; this is a nice little village. Um, there’s Parracombe, which is another nice little village; there’s Horns Cross, there’s Buck’s Mills, um, and going the other way you’ve got Eastleigh, you’ve got Goodleigh, that’s above East-the-Water. Um, you’ve got Fremington; that’s a little seaside place on the way to Barnstaple. There’s, uh, Westward Ho!; `course you know about. Um, beyond the other side of the river there, you’re looking towards over the sand dunes, you’re looking towards Braunton; that’s the other side of Barnstaple. And of course, to get to Braunton all the way into Barnstaple around, unless of course you have a boat across the river. So around there over to Braunton, and Braunton goes on to Croyde and then Croyde Bay. And Woolacombe, Ilfracombe, Combe Martin, then you’re heading back into Somerset again. Um Exmoor; from there you’re over to Exmoor, then you proceed to then right into Taunton, Somerset. That’s the sort of round-about route that way. Um, going the other direction, going this way down the coast road from here, um, go down to Buck’s Cross, Buck’s Mills, at Clovelly. Then of course you’re heading into Cornwall. Then you go then to Wadebridge, then the Coast takes you right down to going to Wadebridge. Then you, um, there’s uh St Mawgan, which is the Air Force base, American Air Force base, and, uh, that’s the end of Coast Road. Um, going the other way of course you’d head towards, heading east then, you go to Torrington and you’re heading towards Exeter … then Crediton and then through Exeter, and then of course you’re on the south coast and then you’ve got Exmouth, Sidmouth, Lyme Regis. There all the seaside places on the other coast there.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Dale Buchheister and Kevin Flynn

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:

A working-class man, he has a definite “country” dialect, though his speech shows none of the cliché sounds of the stage Somerset dialect. You will hear mild rhoticity (r-coloration) in vowels followed by “r.” Most interestingly, he recites a list of all the coastal towns along the north Cornwall, Devon and Somerset coasts. For more information on British dialects, visit PaulMeier.com.

COMMENTARY BY: Paul Meier

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 07/2002

The archive provides:

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• 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).

 

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