Illinois 24

Listen to Illinois 24, a 23-year-old woman from Belmont Heights, Chicago, Illinois, 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): 07/07/1995

PLACE OF BIRTH: Chicago, Illinois

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Caucasian (European ancestry)

OCCUPATION: actor/college student

EDUCATION:

At the time of this recording, the subject was completing her bachelor’s degree in theatre.

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS: none

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

She grew up in the Belmont Heights neighborhood (in northwest Chicago) and describes it as a middle-class, “almost suburban” area. Both parents grew up in Chicago.

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

RECORDED BY: Tanera Marshall

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 14/03/2019

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

So, living in the northwest side of Chicago, I feel like I had a pretty good childhood. There were a lot of kids on the block, and behind my house we have an alley with, um, apartments, so there are also tons of kids in that area. And, you know, we’d all get together and play in the alley, and we’d ride our little scooters. And my brother would always hit his ankle on the scooter, um [subject laughs], which was really funny because all the other kids would laugh. Yeah, and we’d ride ‘em. We have this corner store on the edge of our block, and we would all gather at the corner store and, you know, get our little quarters together and, you know, get candy. And we’d share it with each other outside on the step of the corner store. And we’d go over to the park, ‘cause there’s a park across from the corner store, which is right down from my block, and — Hiawatha Park — and we’d go there and play on the swings, and we’d run around and, like, tackle each other in the middle of the fields [subject laughs] — ‘cause I was a tomboy. So, it was a lot of fun. And I remember my mom was always saying, like, “Be home before the streetlights come on” — because we didn’t have cell phones!

Me and my brother are both Caucasian, but we’ve always lived in Chicago. My dad was from Chicago; my mom was from Maywood. So, like, my dad was more from, like, Logan Square area, and then, when he became a cop, we moved more. He’s been on the force for, like, 25 years.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Tanera Marshall

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 19/06/2019

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The speaker was encouraged to speak in her “home accent” for this recording. It is possible that her study of the General American dialect while in college, in addition to her theatre studies, might have modified her dialect somewhat.

COMMENTARY BY: Tanera Marshall

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 19/06/2019

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.