Michigan 3

Listen to Michigan 3, a 43-year-old man from Trenton, Michigan, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

Both as a courtesy and to comply with copyright law, please remember to credit IDEA for direct or indirect use of samples.  IDEA is a free resource; please consider supporting us.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 43

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1957

PLACE OF BIRTH: Trenton, Michigan

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: actor, writer

EDUCATION: bachelor of arts degree in communication

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

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

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

RECORDED BY: Cynthia Blaise

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 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:

Uh, I first started acting in high school, and what happened was, it was a, the musical “Mame,” and I’m not a musical person.  And I — that was the first time that I ever auditioned in my life, so they asked me to read for — I think Beauregard was the character’s name, the Southern gentleman.  And I was so nervous I went and read with my regular voice.  And so, it was the first time ever did anything like that, and meantime you learn from it.  But I got in the chorus, and that was the first time.  And then, uh, I  had some fun with that, and people liked it, so I got a … kinda got hooked on it.  And then from there I did a few more shows with, um, the high school I was at, which is Belleville, Michigan, which is outside of Detroit.  It’s, um, it’s about seven miles from the main airport, Metropolitan Airport, and it’s before you get to Ann Arbor.  So, kinda stuck in the middle there.  And then, uh, let’s see, what else did I do?  From there was, let’s see, uh, plays were:  “Diary of Anne Frank,” uh, “Oliver!” the musical. Oh, I forget which one that was, one that was on the Titanic, but [laughs], “Unsinkable Molly Brown,” that’s it.  Uh, and from there on I went to college, which is St. Mary’s College, which is in Orchard Lake, Michigan, which is, uh, by the West Bloomfield area.  And the reason why I went there was not for theater because they don’t have a theater program; it was decided whether I wanted to be a priest or not.  So, I was raised a Catholic, and so … In my b–upbringing, one of us in the family — out of the five children, one was supposed to be a priest, and one was supposed to be a nun.  So, um, it was — came down to me [laughs] to be the priest.  Uh, my older sister, she backed out of being a nun, so that wasn’t for her.   And then, when I was going to college, I kinda realized that the priesthood wasn’t for me either, so I made some decisions that way. Uh, finished with a bachelor of arts in communications, and then I just thought I’d try to go on to whatever kind of theater I could, which was community theater, but also work a full-time job at the same time, which was banking, or hotel work, or — haven’t waited yet, so, hopefully, that’ll never happen.  Um, and otherwise, I’ve been acting now for about — it’s a little over 25 years now, yeah.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Jacqueline Baker

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 20/02/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

Subject speaks with a very mild Michigan dialect. His “r” is unusually light, suggesting an influence other than the Midwest, but he is a child of Michigan. There is a characteristic change on the back “honest” vowel, which becomes a front vowel in Michigan, as demonstrated in “beyond, pot, not, Oliver, Molly, college,” and “job.” The “a” in “cat” is somewhat flat and is exhibited in the words “Ann Arbor” and “passage.”

COMMENTARY BY: Cynthia Blaise

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 2000

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.