Illinois 7

Listen to Illinois 7, a 48-year-old woman from Chicago, Illinois, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 48

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 24/06/1952

PLACE OF BIRTH: Chicago, Illinois

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Caucasian with Jewish background

OCCUPATION: retired

EDUCATION: N/A

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

The subject has lived in Chicago all her life.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

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

RECORDED BY: Alexandra Goodman

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 26/11/2000

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’m not used to speaking into microphones; don’t like to speak into microphones, and have refused profusely to speak into this one, but she’s forcing me. There is a gun being held, to my head at this point and time, and [laughs] … So she’s making me talk to you, whoever you are out there. I hope you are enjoying this, because I am not. Anyway, a little bit about myself: I’m one of five. I’m a twin. We were the last to be born in this very large family. And we had three bedrooms to share for seven people. Not easy, but it happened.  Um, and we lived. Three bedrooms, one bath, second-floor walk-up, and it wasn’t too bad. We all made it. We all helped out. We all cooked. We all made our beds. We waited in line to go to the washroom. We banged at the door a little bit. We got a bath once a week. Well, maybe twice a week. But, um, it wasn’t too bad growing up, with a big family. You always had a friend. There was always someone to talk to. There was always someone to hold your hand if you needed it. Um, I don’t know what else to tell you. There wasn’t much on the table. For dinner, and all of it got eaten. And if it didn’t get eaten, you had it thrown over your head. You don’t believe me now, do you? [laughs] Well, we won’t go into that sad story. It wasn’t my head anyway; it was my sister’s. [laughs] It was the tomato soup. Um, we just told that story today; that’s why I’m telling it to you now.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Jacqueline Baker

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 30/08/2007

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

This is a rhotic dialect sample.  The initial sets in this series of sound changes are from a non rhotic perspective, like RP. Note the following:

• intense R-coloring on words with \ɚ\ (e.g. tower, letter, mirror,
owner, effort, ether).
• NURSE \ɝ\ “nurse, working, confirm” has intense R-coloring.
• “hurry” [hɝ.ɹɪ]; “Harrison” [‘hɛɚɹɪsn̩].
• NEAR [ɪə]–>
[ɪɚ].
• SQUARE [ɛə]–> [
ɛɚ]; “Sarah” [sɛəɹɐ].
• START [ɑə]–> 
[ɑɚ].
• CURE [ʊə]–>
[uɚ].
• NORTH = FORCE “morning, porridge, warned, form, force” [ɔə]–>[ɔɚ].
• BATH = TRAP: “bath, can’t”  is [æ] or [̃æ̃].
• “happy, trap, imagine, unsanitary” is [æ̝].
• THOUGHT “Honorof, all, office, off, cloth, dog, calling” [ɔ] –>[ɑ].
• LOT “comma, copyright, on, sorry, lot” [ɒ]–>[a].
• potential liquid U’s (DUKE, “tune”), remain [u], not [ju].
• HAPPY tensing “very happy” [i].
• “-alm” words (“palm”), [l] is pronounced.
• Consonants: [ɪŋ͜ *]–>[ɪŋ͜ g*] “strong (g) and huge”

COMMENTARY BY: Alexandra Goodman, Unicode trans. and minor edits by Dylan Paul

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 26/11/2000

The archive provides:

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