Italy 9

Listen to Italy 9, a 33-year-old man from Treviso and Bologna, Italy. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 33

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1975

PLACE OF BIRTH: Treviso, Italy

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Italian/Caucasian

OCCUPATION: actor

EDUCATION: undergraduate degree

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

Subject was born in Treviso, Italy, and studied four years in Bologna, Italy. He also lived a few years in Reggio Emilia, Italy (80 km north of Bologna).

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

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

RECORDED BY: Mandy Fox

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 12/07/2008

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 from Italy. I was born in Treviso. That is close to Venice, and, um, and I, I make the, the university in Bologna. My, my degree is, is, in literature with a specialization in theatre and, um, and my job is theatre in as many aspects that, that I can try to reach; and, uh, I can speak for whatever I want? Ah, [inhales cigarette] now I am in Latvia [exhales smoke] for international festival and, uh, of theatre, and it’s, uh, a very good experience. I am meeting a lot of, uh, interesting people and, uh, one is in front of me, but you can’t see that because it’s just [laughs] how you’re recording [laughs], and, uh, here the sun never goes down. You know. It’s, uh, very funny. It’s, uh, at midnight there is still light, uh. Well, not in midnight, but that’s OK. If you don’t come here you don’t see; you don’t know, so I can lie as I want. So I will tell you there is always the sunshine, and there are parrots going around, and there are a lot of people always dancing and flying everywhere and you can fly too.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Mandy Fox

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 12/07/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The subject has an excellent grasp of English, which he began studying in secondary school. While not residing outside Italy for any sizable length of time, his English language skills have, no doubt, been strengthened by touring the world as a performer. Initially halting because of, perhaps, nerves, his tone remains animated, and cigarette smoking can be heard on two occasions. Some “uh” sounds present in the recording may be extensions of an intrusive schwa sound. Some attributes of his accent include: dentalizing of alveolar consonants (“territory” and “dog”), substitution of long e for I in the medial position (“animal” and “sentimental”), presentation of ery/ary endings as “air-y”  (“unsanitary”), and the shifting of unvoiced h to voiced h (“huge”).

COMMENTARY BY: Mandy Fox

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 12/07/2008

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.