Illinois 2

Listen to Illinois 2, a woman from Delavan and Aurora, Illinois, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: N/A

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

PLACE OF BIRTH: Delavan, Illinois

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: retired insurance-company employee

EDUCATION: college degree

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

The subject lived in Bloomington and Frankfort, Illinois, for short periods, and was college educated as a speech therapist. She lived and worked in Aurora, Illinois, most of her adult life. She was raised in “Spoon River” country.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

She is married to subject Illinois 1.

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 Delavan, Illinois, rather in the country close to Delavan, Illinois. Um, born in a farmhouse; um, the doctor was there; um, my father was a farmer, he was a tenant farmer, eh, farmed about 180 acres and we had sort of a, a struggle to make ends meet usually. I went to grade school and high school in Delavan, Illinois, and then went on to Illinois State University in Normal. I majored in, uh, speech therapy, we called it at that time, and, uh, worked as a public-school speech therapist for nine and a half years after graduating from Illinois State. Um, I’m al- I’ve also been a piano teacher at a couple different times and have played organ for church, a couple different, uh, towns and most recently worked as a clerical person at Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Did that for quite a few years and recently have retired from that position. Um, I enjoy sewing, and reading, and traveling, and cooking, and being with friends uh. [I] have one child and one grandchild that I enjoy a great deal. In central Illinois it’s pretty flat, very few hills or valleys, um, a few drainage ditches going through the farm country um, lot of — this time of year in the summer there’s a lot of, ah, corn fields that get quite tall with green corn uh, wheat, beans, oats are raised in that area, um, some cattle — milk cows and, uh, beef cattle as well, um, little, little towns, lot of farms dotting the countryside.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Paul Meier

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 1999

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:

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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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