France 2

Listen to France 2, a 23-year-old woman from Paris, France, who has also spent considerable time in Africa and the United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 23

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1976

PLACE OF BIRTH: Paris, France

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: French (exact ethnicity unknown)

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: university (working on master’s degree at time of recording)

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

The subject has spent time in Gabon, West Central Africa; New York, United States; London, England; and Lawrence, Kansas, United States.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

She learned British English, the influences of which can be heard in the recording.

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): 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:

Also in Paris, um, I spent, uh, the first eight year of my life in Paris, and there I started, uh, I was like a little child when my parents put me like in a, give me some learning, er, English lessons. It was not very difficult [unclear] it was because to know a few words in English, and after it was, uh, when I was 8 year old I went to live in Africa and Gabon for four years. And there, uh, as part of my, um, programs, color program, I have some English, uh, classes, and after I went, uh, to New York for one year because of my parents’ works. And the only, they put me in the … mm … in the French school because they were scared that if I come back in France, the system would be different and it would be, um, I have to catch up the French system. Uh, so, uh of course there are’s English classes more emphasized than, uh, normal French school. But, uh, the problem is that you always, uh … urg … er, hang a … hang around with, uh, French people, so it’s more difficult, and after I went two years in, uh, London, the French uh Lycee, um, it was completely French; I mean I was only with French people. It’s kind of difficult to meet uh (t’, t’) local people because I think language is kind of barrier even though you have the [unclear] ba, the badic, um, the basic uh things to to say. And after England, I went to back to France, (t’) and there, uh, I start to do, um, I, I went to a business school, um (t’) where you learned kind of uh global, general knowledge. And, um, also have some Spanish, uh, classes, and also English, but I have more classes in English than in Spanish.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Megan Schemmel

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:

If you are a dialect researcher, or an actor using this sample to develop your skill in the accent, please see my instruction manual at www.paulmeier.com. As the speaker in this sample is a unique individual, it is highly unlikely that she will conform to my analysis in every detail. But you will find it interesting and instructive to notice which of my “signature sounds” and “additional features” (always suggested only as commonly heard features of the accent) are widely used by most speakers of the accent, and which are subject to variation from individual to individual.

COMMENTARY BY: Paul Meier

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 13/11/2016

The archive provides:

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• 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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