Georgia 5

Listen to Georgia 5, a woman in her 40s from Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 40s

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

PLACE OF BIRTH: Cape Town, South Africa, but raised in Atlanta

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: speech therapist/accent and dialect coach

EDUCATION: master’s degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders

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

The subject was born in Cape Town, South Africa, but moved to Atlanta as a young child. She attended university in New York City and lived there until returning to Atlanta about a month after graduation. She says that, for all intents and purposes, she has lived most of her life in the same suburb of Atlanta.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject says, “I grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta close to the city’s center. I was raised in a household where my parents spoke with South African accents. My educators and peers primarily spoke with Standard American dialects. I’ve always found that one’s dialect and accent is most closely associated with the accents spoken in educational settings, especially during the formative years of language. Most of my peers growing up spoke with a neutral accent with perhaps a little bit of Southern flavor.”

The subject is a speech therapist and dialect coach.

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

RECORDED BY: Kim Linsider (subject)

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 01/07/2020

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 live in Atlanta, Georgia. I was actually born in Cape Town, South Africa, and we immigrated to the United States, specifically to Atlanta, when I was very small; and for all intents and purposes, I have lived most of my life in Atlanta. …

I was given the opportunity of spending some time in New York City, in the heart of Manhattan for college. [It] was a fantastic experience, um, very different from growing up down South, and I really enjoyed it. But within about a month of graduating, I came right back down South.

I grew up in a wonderfully close-knit community about six miles north of downtown Atlanta, and one thing that looking back I always missed was growing up with extended family around – as all of my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents were still in South Africa. So when families got together for holidays and for vacations, um, it was typically my parents and my siblings who are all fantastic people, and our community became our family, but I always really envisioned having extended family around; and when it was time to pick a place to live, Atlanta was just an obvious place to move back to. …

We’ve been living here for many, many years and raising our family down the street from their grandparents and actually living in the same community where I grew up. So we literally walk out of our house and down the street and recognize three generations of people. I recognize that it is so unusual in this global economy, in this global world that we live in today, but it’s really special.

I’ve always attributed accent more to the schooling and academic environment where people grew up in as opposed to solely based on what language or accent is spoken in the home. I grew up with peers from — whose parents were from across the world, whether it’s Poland, or Russia, or Israel. Um, friends with parents from all over the country, Chicago and New York, and California and Texas, and as, as students we all work off of each other and all grew up speaking a pretty similar accent, and that was really based on what we heard during the school day from each other and from our teachers.

Being down South has definitely had an influence, if not only on accent, but also on the words and phrases, um, that I’ve learned to use over the years. Many that didn’t even recognize were actually, actually had a Southern flavor to them. “Hush,” for example. “Hush now, I’m really trying to concentrate.” Or “Unbeknownst”: Unbeknownst to me, this is actually not a word that is used frequently in other places, other than the South.

“Let out,” as in “When will school let out?” which is used frequently when people in Atlanta are trying to decide whether to close school due to threat of snow or threat of a snowflake, which apparently shuts down the city. And, of course, there’s “Coke” as in Coca-Cola, which for most people is one beverage, but for anyone who lives in Atlanta is a carbonated beverage that comes in a multitude of different flavors. …

TRANSCRIBED BY: Kim Linsider (subject)

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 02/07/2020

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.