France 14

Listen to France 14, a 20-year-old man from Versailles, France. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 20

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 05/03/1997

PLACE OF BIRTH: Versailles, France

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian/French

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: high school, partial college

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

The subject has been living in the United States for the last five years: three years in San Francisco and two in Ashland, Oregon.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The speaker had a cold at the time of the recording.

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

RECORDED BY: Kris Danford

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 08/12/2016

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, I was born in Versailles, which is, like, nearby Paris, like 45 minutes away from Paris. OK, I was born in uh, uh, November 1997. Uh, my parents, uh, are not from the Paris sort of region actually; they’re from the northeast and nearby Germany. Um, my mom was an elementary teacher back in France; she still teaches here, uh, in the U.S. sometimes. My dad has always been an engineer. I have, uh, three other siblings. I’m the oldest. I have, uh, uh, one sister who is — I mean I have two sisters, but I have one who goes to Pacific University in Forest Grove, like an hour away from Portland [Oregon]. Uh, she’s going to be, uh, 18 this month. And my other sister: She is 12; yeah, she’s 12. Uh, she goes to middle school with my little brother, uh, who is 11. And right now they’re actually doing home schooling — it’s homeschooling — because, uh, middle school for them was like: “Eh, I had enough.”

Um, we came to the U.S. in 2012, July 2012. I can remember pretty well. Um, I remember the date also, uh, and all that. Um, why I came here: Uh, mostly it was my parents who wanted to come here. Um, uh, they had this project for a very long time, uh, to come to the U.S. and just move out of France because they were not really satisfied in France. Um, like politically I guess? But the — we don’t really talk about politics in my family. But they were not satisfied; they just wanted to go out and find some new adventure. And, uh [cough] after the middle-school experience that I had, I was like, “Yes, let’s move out of there because I, I don’t — I don’t wanna be in France anymore; I don’t like it.” And uh, um, so we moved here. I was 14. Uh , my dad — my, my, my dog, my cat, we-we also had then. It was funny because we had to give them drugs to get them in the plane. And um, was, was, was pretty funny.

Um, and then favorite experience? I dunno, I uhh, uhh: probably when I went to Hawaii, I would say. And, uh, we went out swimming with dolphins and sea turtles and many other fishes that bite you. [laughs] I mean it’s true, the-they do bite you. You’re just swimming around, and all of a sudden — all of a sudden you feel like a, like a pinch on, on your toes or something and then you’re like — then you, you see the one passing around; it has this face like, “Yeah, gotcha.” I was like, “Oh, OK.” Um, and no, I really loved Hawaii. Just like the, the tropical place. I’m a tropical-places guy. I really love tropical places.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Kris Danford

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 16/03/2017

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY: 

The speaker’s resonance is far back in the mouth. There are some stress errors, such as “disease” (stress on the first syllable), “futile” (stress on the last syllable), and “politically” (stress on the first syllable). I also hear a strong use of the uvular [r] in such words as “bird” and “ether.” Other features:

[oʊ] tends to shift to a pure vowel, closer to [ɒ], as in “diagnosis.”

He will use [I] instead of [i] in a few instances, such as “fourteen” and “northeast.”

[h] is not often used at the onset of a word, as in “Harrison” and “huge.” However, he does pronounce the “h” in “homeschooling.”

“Tune” employs the liquid u.

[d,t] are dentalized.

In observing the speaker visually, his lips take on a forward, rounded posture.

COMMENTARY BY: Kris Danford

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 16/03/2017

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