France 3

Listen to France 3, a woman in her mid 20s from Besançon and Montbéliard, France. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: mid 20s

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): mid 1970s

PLACE OF BIRTH: Besançon, France

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: French professor

EDUCATION: master’s degree

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

The subject has lived in Lawrence, Kansas, United States.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

Her undergraduate degree is in English, and her master’s is in French. She speaks American-accented English, though British English was the model when she first began learning, at age 11.

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:

I was born in Besançon, ah, in Montbéliard, and I grew up in Montbéliard in Creteil, near Paris, and I spend most of my years in Besançon, where I studied English, and I got a degree in English in Besançon and I’m part of the exchange program. … The, my first year here was part of the exchange program, and I returned on my own, and I’m enrolled in a master’s in French, and I’m teaching French here at KU. Ah, the first time I took English, it was in, um, what would be the equivalent of middle high school here, like junior high? And, ah, you have the choice; it’s about when you’re 11, and you have a choice between taking English or German, and I chose English, and so I’ve been learning English for thirteen years now, something and, and I took a degree at, um, college, so that’s how I learned it. … It, it’s British English definitely and most of the time in Europe, um, you’ll learn British English, and then I specialized in American studies and women’s studies, and so that’s why I chose to came to the State. That’s weird because people here in the States say that I have British accent, and when I’m in France people say, “Where did you get this American accent?” so [giggles] that’s funny. Ah, I’ve been here, well, I came, the first time I came here was three years ago, and then last year I came back to France to finish my master’s degree there, and now I’m back and I’m enrolled in master’s program here in French …

TRANSCRIBED BY: Campbell Wharton

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 31/01/2000

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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• 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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