Kentucky 12

Listen to Kentucky 12, a 55-year-old man from Harlan, Kentucky, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 55

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 17/03/1959

PLACE OF BIRTH: Harlan, Kentucky

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: police dispatcher

EDUCATION: college

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

The subject lived outside Harlan for only about four years, during his time in the Air Force during the 1980s. About a year of that time was spent in Alconbury, Cambridgeshire, England.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

He has a professional radio background.

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

RECORDED BY: Tracy Turner

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 25/08/2014

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 55 years old, and I’ve lived in southeast Kentucky for most of my life. I was, uh, away from the mountains here for about four years back when I was in the Air Force, in the early 80s. I was stationed at Alconbury, England, in 1980 and spent almost a year there. When I came back, uh, when I left the military, I went to work the local radio station here in news and production work. While I was doing that, I was also working part time as a police officer and became interested in law enforcement. I went to work as a dispatcher for the State Police back in 1992 and continued to do voice-production work for various radio stations around the region.  I eventually set up a small studio near my home, and I’ve been quite busy for the last few months with that. I was injured at work a few months back in a fall that did some damage to my back. And I’ve not been able to go back to work since that injury, and most likely I’m going to have to have surgery, I guess, at some point. I’ve got two sons; both of them are grown, and they’ve got families of their own. One granddaughter and another granddaughter on the way: She should be here sometime this fall and we’re all really anxious about that.  I’m proud of my two sons. One drives a coal truck, and the other is a correctional officer for one of the prisons over in Virginia. When I retire, I am hoping to do a little bit of traveling, maybe see parts of the world that I didn’t get a chance to see while I was in the Air Force. Hopefully, I’d like to go back to Cambridgeshire and see how that are has changed over the years.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Tracy Turner

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION: 25/08/2014

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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