England 92

Listen to England 92, a 78-year-old woman from Manchester, in northwest England. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 78

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 22/11/1933

PLACE OF BIRTH: Manchester, England

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: white

OCCUPATION: homemaker

EDUCATION: secondary education until age 15

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

She was born and raised in Manchester, England. She lived there until she got married when she was 22 years old. She moved with her husband to San Diego, California, in 1955 and has lived there ever since.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

After leaving school at age 15, she began work at a shoe store in Manchester, where she wanted her accent to reflect the upper-class. Although she still has a noticeable Manchester accent, there are certain RP and American influences in her speech.

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

RECORDED BY: Donald Russell (under supervision of David Nevell)

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 26/03/2012

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 Manchester, 1933. My father had a dairy farm. I started school at 5 years old, went to kindergarten. When I got into first grade, World War Two started. All the children in the big cities were evacuated. I went to stay with relatives in Cheshire. Stayed a few months, then back home to Manchester, as the bombing had eased in Manchester. But we did have an air-raid now and, and then. I had lots of friends went to the pictures once a week to see the Hollywood film stars, which brought us out of the doldrums of the war. Took part in sports, which I enjoyed. I also loved art classes in school. And, umm, anyway, when I was 12 years old, I took the Eleven-Plus, and I’m afraid it wasn’t very successful. So I continued on at school until I was about 15, and then I went out to work. I worked for quite a few years until I finally got married. And I married an American. And that’s how I came to California, to sunny California, which, um, was a very good thing to do, I thought, anyway, in my life. Uhhmm, then I continued … I had two boys, Michael and Daniel. And, umm, [clears throat] uhhh, as time went on, uhhhh, of course they got through their schooling, and then they, they got married and had children of their own, and now I have six grandsons, and I enjoy all of them.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Donald Russell (under supervision of David Nevell)

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 26/03/2012

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.