Mississippi 11

Listen to Mississippi 11, an 83-year-old man from Tupelo, Mississippi, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 83

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 18/09/1933

PLACE OF BIRTH: Ecru, Mississippi

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: retired professor, writer, and Tennessee Williams Scholar

EDUCATION: Ph.D

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The subject was raised in Tupelo but was born in Ecru. He also spent one year in the Delta and one year at Vicksburg as a youth. As an adult, he has lived in Memphis, Tennessee, and New Orleans, Louisiana.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

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

RECORDED BY: Mendy McMasters

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 30/09/2016

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Well, I, I was born, in, in the town, little town called Ecru in the hills of north Mississippi. We spent one year in the Delta, one year at Vicksburg, the national military park. My father worked for the National Park Service. Then we moved to Tupelo, and I grew up, uh, north of town. Part of the time we lived in town; part of the time we lived in the Natchez Trace headquarters north of town. And that — course it was in Tupelo that I was in school with Elvis. And, uh, then I went to, uh, Ole Miss. Uh, well, I went to Southwestern at Memphis [now Rhodes College] as an undergrad, then to Ole Miss. Got my master’s and Ph.D, then went to, uh, wound up in New Orleans to teach, uh, at the University of New Orleans.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Mendy McMasters

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 24/10/2016

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:

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• 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.