Maryland 4

Listen to Maryland 4, a woman in her 50s from Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 50s

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1950s

PLACE OF BIRTH: Baltimore, Maryland

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: She worked as a nurse, then co-owned and ran a small business.

EDUCATION: college degree

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

She has lived in Baltimore her whole life but has traveled extensively.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

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

RECORDED BY: Lynn Watson

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 18/10/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

How to eat a crab: Well, the crabs get dumped on the table, and the first one you pick you have to take it, and that’s your crab. You can’t throw it back; you touch it, it’s yours. So you take it, and if you don’t like all the seasoning you brush a little of the seasoning off of it. And then youuuu turn it over, and there’s a little flip-top, and you kinda pull that back on the belly, and then you get your thumb in there and you peel off the top outer shell. And then I scrape off all the gills; a plastic knife works very well for that. And then I break it in half, leaving all the legs intact. Then I will kinda peel away; oh, I do take off the two front legs, the big claws. OK, then you get your knife and you kinda pay … peel away the cartilage that’s in the front. This gives you a big hunk of crab meat — backfin it’s called. Then you break that off and you eat that, and then you kinda mess around a … with all the other stuff in there, saving the legs for later — maybe soup? Maybe if you’re still hungry later. That’s how you eat a crab. With vinegar.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Lynn Watson

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

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

Overall tendency of phonetic reduction. Characteristic posture of raised tongue (dorsum). Also specific instances of lip rounding as described below.  Raised posture of the anterodorsum of the tongue results in the pronunciation of [ɛ̈ʊ̆] in many Baltimore and Maryland dialects in stressed syllables, heard in this sample in words such as “so, goat, over” [sɛ̈ʊ̆], [gɛ̈ʊ̆t], [ˈɛ̈ʊ̆və˞].  Another key feature of many dialects from the region related to raising of the dorsum can be observed in the pronunciation of spelled letter “l”. Generally speaking, in all but the initial position, pronunciation of “l” is often labialized [ɫʷ]. When “l” follows a front or central unrounded vowel or is syllabic, frequently only the posterodorsum is raised, but the tip/blade of the tongue is NOT raised–lip rounding appears to substitute for raising of the tip/blade. This often results in the substitution of a back rounded vowel [ʊ] for “l”. Examples are found in “animal” “table” “little” [ˈænəməʊ̆] [ˈteɪ̆bəʊ̆] [ˈlɪɾəʊ̆].   Note pronunciation of “almost”–[ˈɔmɛ̈ʊ̆st]. In this case, “l” follows a back rounded vowel [ɔ]. Perhaps because the posterodorsum is already raised and lips rounded for the [ɔ] vowel, no sound substitutes for the “l”. In this instance, I would suggest that the back rounded vowel essentially “stands in” for both the vowel AND the lateral approximate. Other notable pronunciations in the sample:

veterinary [ˈvɛt̚əneɪ̆ɹɪ̝] daily [ˈde̞ɪ̆ɫɪ̝] tower [ˈtɐʊw̆ ə˞] liking [ˈlaɪ̆kɪ̝n] morning [ˈmɔə˞n̆ ɪ̝n] mirror [miɚ̆] washed [wɔ̜ə˞̆ʃt] porridge [ˈpʊəɹɪ̆ dʒ] yellow [ˈjɛlə] mouth [mæʊ̆θ] tire [taɚ̆] futile [ˈfçutaɪ̆ʊ] almost [ˈɔmɛ̈ʊ̆st] half [hæ̝ə̆f] around [əˈɹænd]

COMMENTARY BY: Lynn Watson

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

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• 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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