Jamaica 4

Listen to Jamaica 4, a 24-year-old woman from Kingston and Spanish Town, Jamaica. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 24

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 29/10/1988

PLACE OF BIRTH: Kingston, Jamaica

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: West Indian

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: tertiary

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

The subject moved to Spanish Town, Portmore, Jamaica, when she was about 14 years old.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

She learned British English from her father. Her mother is from St. Mary, and her father is from St. Elizabeth.

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

RECORDED BY: Elizabeth Montoya-Stemann

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 15/02/2013

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 grew up in Olympic Gardens in Kingston, Jamaica. I lived with my mother and my father, my sister and my brother, and also with my cousin. After I lived, uh, in Kingston, Jamaica, for about fourteen years, I moved to Spanish Town, where I was still living with my mother but not my father ’cause he migrated to England; and I was living with my two nieces. I call them Pebbles and Bambam because they are the center of my joy. They really made me feel very happy, and I enjoy being around them so very much. Right now I’m still living in Spanish Town, but I’m married and I’m a bit away from Pebbles and Bambam, so I m-miss them a lot, but I try to see them as often as I can. I enjoy living in Spanish Town. It’s a wonderful place, and I enjoy being a voice student or a drama student at Edna Manley College. In Jamaica, OK, ah, some of the places that I have been to in Jamaica that are really nice: Negril, Ocho Rios; I went to Run Away Bay for my anniversary when I got married. Ah, Royal Decameron Hotel is a really wonderful place, really beautiful, uh, hotel, and I also visit St. Mary. My mother is from St. Mary, so I spend a lot of my summers over there. My father is from St. Elizabeth, so I also spend, uh, Christmas time with my family in St. Elizabeth, and I spend time in Portland when I go to visit my brother, and in St. Thomas; St. Thomas is a really wonderful place to be. And I also spend time in Montego Bay when I’m going away on trips, when I go to sing with my friends.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Elizabeth Montoya-Stemann

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 16/02/2013

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:

• 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).

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