New Jersey 2

Listen to New Jersey 2, a 48-year-old man from Cranford, New Jersey, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 48

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1956

PLACE OF BIRTH: Newark, New Jersey

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: attorney in environmental law

EDUCATION: law degree

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

The subject was born in Newark, New Jersey, and raised in Cranford, New Jersey, in the north-central area of the state. Although he has lived in Easton, Pennsylvania; Boston; London; and northern Israel, the subject has spent most of his life in New York and New Jersey.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject’s parents were immigrants from Poland and Russia.

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

RECORDED BY: Daydrie Hague

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 2004

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

The big Yankee fan in the family was Grandma. On Saturdays during baseball season — several times during the season — Grandma would take me to see the game. We would get up early, head in to Newark. We would drive into Newark — we lived in Cranford — and get on the old Hudson tubes, which is now the PATH train. And we would get off, probably down by what is now the World Trade Center Stop, and then we would get onto the A-train, going north, eh, all the way up into the Bronx, where we would get off plenty early, so that we could even stop for lunch. There was a wonderful old cafeteria, beautiful old cafeteria where we would go before the ball game, and Grandma would get me a corned-beef sandwich and a celery tonic. So that would be … Then we would get to the Yankee Stadium so early that they would still be setting up for batting practice, so we would be there probably two hours before the game began. And then — this is one of my favorite parts — after they finished all of the batting practice, they took the batting cage away, and then the maintenance crew would come out with the line machines. And they would put the new lines down from home plate to first base and third base, and then they’d bring out the — a mold, that they would lay on the ground, a wood form that they would then put in alignment to create the batter’s box. So everything would be just perfect. The ground crew would come and sweep the out — the infield, so that the dirt was perfect. And the outfield, the grass would be perfect. Actually, one of the greatest moments would be first getting to the stadium, walking into that baseball stadium up the ramps that would take us to our seats, we always had box seats on the first base side. and walking through the, uh, the entrance way that would take you from the ramps into the field, that first glimpse of this perfect space that was indoors and outdoors at the same time, and we would sit down. The–there were the old ushers that would come, with the mitts that they would put on their hand, and they would wipe the seat off, and Grandma would give them a tip. And we would sit down, watch the entire batting practice, wait for the game to begin. And then all of the excitement of sitting there, watching the game with my grandmother. And she was just the biggest fan. And it was just a treasure to be there with her. Uh, so that one of the great treats. Grandma used to work in Newark. She worked for an upholsterer. Uh, she — uh, I shouldn’t say an upholsterer, uh, a drapery maker. Uh, the drapery maker would, would create the designs, and she would fabricate the drapes. And I would go in with her on Saturday, when we didn’t go to baseball games. And she worked in Newark and it was large interior … it was a large space on the second floor of the upholstery and, un, uh, drapery building. Uh, and the drapes would be made and fabricated on these very long tables. They were probably, well, they seemed to go on forever, but they were 20- or 25-foot long tables that they would lay the draperies out on. Uh, Grandma would give me some money to go downstairs to Woolworth to get a model airplane. And I would get a model airplane and some Duco cement, and I would sit next to her while she listened to the Metropolitan opera on Saturday, the Texaco Metropolitan Opera broadcast.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Jacqueline Baker

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 13/12/2007

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The subject speaks in relatively low pitches in a narrow melodic pattern, using volume and elongation of a vowel for emphasis. In general, he uses a falling inflection pattern towards the ends of sentences. His speech is characterized by relaxed consonant action, particularly with the use of [d], [t], [l], [s], and [ð]. The tongue tip seems to approach the back of the front teeth rather than the gum ridge or the space between the upper and lower teeth. Occasionally [d] is substituted for [t] as in [fjudəl] for futile and [sædədeɪ] for Saturday. There is consistent use of hard [r] and [tə] for [tu]. Finally, notice the pronunciation of the name [sæɹə], not the expected [sɛɚɹə].

COMMENTARY BY: Daydrie Hague;  Unicode trans. and minor edits by Dylan Paul

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 2004

The archive provides:

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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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