New York 34

Listen to New York 34, a 43-year-old woman from Valley Stream, Long Island, New York, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 43

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 21/06/1975

PLACE OF BIRTH: New York City (Brooklyn)

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Caucasian/Italian-American

OCCUPATION: recruiting manager

EDUCATION: BS degree

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

The speaker lived in Valley Stream, Long Island, New York, until she was 18. She then moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and has been there ever since.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The speaker is a first-generation Italian-American. Her parents immigrated from Calabria, Italy, in the 1950s. Although she has lived in Pittsburgh for the majority of her life, that city’s influences on her dialect seem mostly non-existent.

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

RECORDED BY: Mia Taylor (under supervision of Deric McNish)

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 25/11/2018

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Where I grew up was awesome. Um, it was a nice, little, suburban town in Long Island, New York, um, called Valley Stream, and it was just your traditional, um, suburban, um, town in Long Island, and it was very remarkable. I was super excited to move to Pittsburgh, um; I was 18; it was my first year of college; my parents drove me up; it was about a seven-hour drive, felt like it took forever. And I was really excited; I was excited to get out of New York; I was excited to meet new people, um, and it was probably the best four years of my life.

Big, big, big differences. Um, for starters, the people are amazing in Pittsburgh. Uh, the people in New York are rude, they’re obnoxious, um, and so the people really, really made me love the city of Pittsburgh. Um, the accents were very different, um, so when people would hear me talk, they’d be like, “You’re from New York, aren’t you?” Yup. Uh, it was very twangy, the accents here, um, so that was a big difference. Um, going to school in the city was, was, was awesome, and it was a little bit different from where I grew up, um, because where I grew up was a little more, um, little more suburban even though I lived very close to New York City, um, so that was a difference. And I would say for the most part, the people, um, were the biggest difference, uh, in, in between, y’know, Long Island or New York and Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh’s a lot smaller of a city, um, so you have that hometown feel, uh, which you don’t always get in New York.

My home life was generally OK, um. Lot of screaming. I had a good childhood, but a lot of screaming. My mom was an old-school Italian, um, very strict, very controlling, but not in a bad way, just in her own way. Um, I didn’t always feel happy in like my teenage years, but for the most part my childhood was pretty great; we got to do the things that, y’know, any kid would do. Um, my dad worked a lot to take care of us. Um, my older brothers beat the hell out of me all the time. Um, Aunt Lynn and I always played together. Um, so it was, it was fun. It was fun, but it wasn’t always happy, but it was always fun; um, we, y’know, had a good, good, good growing-up in New York, ’cause I love New York.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Mia Taylor (under supervision of Deric McNish)

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 27/11/2018

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).

For instructional materials or coaching in the accents and dialects represented here, please go to Other Dialect Services.