Germany 17

Listen to Germany 17, a 30-year-old man from Herzberg and Berlin, Germany. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 30

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 13/10/1982

PLACE OF BIRTH: Herzberg, Brandenburg, Germany

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: visual artist specializing in experimental film

EDUCATION: master’s of fine arts in experimental media

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

The speaker was born and raised in Herzberg, Brandenburg, Germany. He lived there for nineteen years before moving to Berlin, where he lived for eight years. He then lived in Prague for a year before spending this last eight months between New York and Southern California. He first learned English in public school, grades 5 to 11.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

Once he moved to Prague, he met his partner, an American, and began to heavily learn American English from his partner, American books, movies, television, and other groups he met in Prague.

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

RECORDED BY: Stephen Tyler Howell (under supervision of David Nevell)

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 06/12/2012

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY:  N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Like, growing up in Germany, we had like a lot of movies from America, and I would like, like to watch, like, the action movies and like all the silly movies just to relax and not being like super like, serious about going to the movies. But, I remember I liked these really old movies from the seventies; but then I would more and more get into the experimental movies, you know, like Stan Brakhage, and like the, you know, kin-kind of like experimental movie scene like … I love like, recently I watched like, one movie again which is called “Deadlock” by Roland Klick. It’s from the seventies; it’s really good, and I watched it again, and I really like it because it has, it has the feeling of, um, you know the desert, and like I think it’s shot in California or somewhere like in the desert, like Mojave Desert; I don’t, I don’t really know. But, it has, like, it was shot in the seventies, and it has like this really strong, passionate, like almost like it hurts almost to see these characters like acting, and, like, you know they are like fighting for survival, and there’s, like, this love story going on and this old guy and someone wants, wants to kill the other guy. So it’s like, I don’t know. I, I think it’s very deep, like, has a lot of layers. There isn’t, I mean there’s new movies coming out that I appreciate, that I would like watch just to relax. Like when I watch movies, like lately, I just watch it to be entertained. I don’t want to … I would just watch a shitty movie and fall asleep. I’m more like you know, uhm, kind of a visual guy. Like I would, like, more appreciate, like the the visual, like, concept of a film. I appreciate a lot of improvisation and, like, when people do their thing and fee are free, and, like, these scripters films sometimes, like, don’t leave room for a lot of other different things that happen in between the lines, so that’s why, you know, that’s why I also do these kind of films that I’m not linear or, uh, that I’m not … it’s more about the whole idea of the concept; and then also these scenes that happen in between and then later when you go back … maybe it’s also about the visual appeal of the film, but it doesn’t have to be necessarily the main thing for me. It can also be like just a nice idea. Like, someone who, like, mastered that kind of is Werner Herzog. I know that a lot of Americans right now are like super fond of Werner Herzog’s films. And, he’s German, and he’s doing films in America like all over the place. Em, and, I get it because he’s ma … he kind of, he can like link these two worlds. He makes beautiful images, but he also has like a nice concept that, like, goes beyond the entertainment line; you know what I mean? Like is, which is visually appealing, but then also like the whole concept, like the whole, like idea of, like, let’s find a place, that’s so weird and odd that. I can’t stand his voice, to be honest: Like, when he’s, like, talking about it, that’s maybe just me because it’s like this very thick, like German accent; I guess like this, “[unclear] like, what do you think about the, the whole situation here?” And you know is, it doesn’t, it throws me out now, but I think his films are amazing, and he’s very active right now. He’s like, I get it; I mean I, I like it, simply said.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Stephen Tyler Howell (under supervision of David Nevell)

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 06/12/2012

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY:  N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The subject speaks in a much more fluid, legato intonation despite his general emphasis on plosives and the use of some vowel-initial glottal stops.  His rate of speech is often high.  He has no trouble with the /w/ sound and often substitutes a mildly dental /th/, in both voiced and unvoiced positions.  Generally, he lacks rhoticity, keeping the alveolar approximant /r/ in initial positions and when the /r/ is both preceded and followed by a vowel.  Both “nurse” and “goose” use a /z/ rather than /s/, and there is no appearance of the dark, or velarized, /l/ in his speech.  Also, note his pronunciation of “ether” and “penicillin.”  He also does not substitute the German /f/ for /v/.  Note his pronunciation of “Werner Herzog.”

COMMENTARY BY: Stephen Tyler Howell (under supervision of David Nevell)

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 06/12/2012

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