Illinois 25

Listen to Illinois 25, a 22-year-old man from Highland Park, Illinois, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 22

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 06/10/1996

PLACE OF BIRTH: Highland Park, Illinois (near Chicago)

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian/Jewish (European ancestry)

OCCUPATION: actor/college student

EDUCATION:

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

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

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

His father grew up in Buffalo and Cincinnati, and his mother moved around the country a lot, with many years in California.

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:

[Interviewer: So you grew up …] in Highland Park. It is near the lake. Um, I didn’t live right on the lake, but I lived close enough to walk to it. Yes, I swim. The public beach right by my house: They just redid it, so it’s very fancy. They brought in these huge rocks and made these big coves, and there’s, like, these little cabanas where people do, like, yoga. It’s very bougie. There used to be just, like, a little Port-a-Potty, but now they, like, completely redid it so it’s, uh, it’s a whole thing. It’s like 80-percent Jewish: privileged, white, money, Jewish.

So, uh, my parents are not from Highland Park. They are from, kind of, all over the place. And they’re from a generation that is very different than how they wanted to raise their children, purposefully so — my dad partially in Buffalo, partially in Cincinnati. My mom: She was always moving around, um, so I don’t even think she knows exactly where she’s from. But she spent a good amount of time in California.

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 his “home accent” for this recording. It is possible that his study of the General American dialect while in college, in addition to his theatre studies, might have modified his 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.