New York 35

Listen to New York 35, a 43-year-old man from Penfield, near Rochester, 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): 17/10/1975

PLACE OF BIRTH: Rochester, New York

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: writer

EDUCATION: college

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

The subject went to college in Vermont for an unspecified amount of time. He also lived on the outskirts of New York City for eight months before moving back upstate.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

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

RECORDED BY: Adam Lane Bergquist

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 25/04/2019

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

OK, so, I grew up in Penfield, outside of Rochester. It was a, um, suburb, um, middle-class, upper-middle-class suburb. Ahm, it was, uh, it was a very pretty place to grow up. There were, ah, lots of trees and, uh, nature around, and I would, um — I would play in nature during the day. I would go down into the, the ravines and gullies around the neighborhood and play war with the other kids and things like that, and so it was …

And then I went to elementary school in Penfield. I went to, uh, middle school and high school in Brockport. Um, I went to the University of Buffalo, um, for a term and was miserable there, and left., and then transferred to Bennington College in Vermont — southern Vermont — and studied, uh, creative writing and media study and, and the early stage of the internet and things like that, um. No other college after that, no. …

One of the things that I realized about my childhood that was different was that I was, I was always sort of living out of bags and after-school programs and things like that; and as I was, um, in middle school and high school and we were in a more rural place, it was — it took up to an hour to just get home from school because the bus would be traveling through this, through the countryside and, like, eh, um — and you would realize, like, how far away from everything you were. And I think it made me feel very — I don’t know — very isolated. And, um, but I found that that has kind of stayed with me since I’ve grown up. I-I’ve — every time I live in a place, like, I’ll live in, um, a city, I’ll always find an apartment at the very outer reaches of the city. And it’ll always be, um [clicks tongue] — it’s a sense of like, being able to be completely tuned out and turned off from a place, and then engage with the place. And, so, I think I really didn’t like that as a child. I didn’t like to be so far away from where the action was and where my friends were. But now it’s, it’s the thing that I can’t really live without as a, as an adult.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Adam Lane Bergquist

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 15/08/2019

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

This subject grew up and has spent most of his life in or near smaller cities in northern New York State. He identifies as upper middle class and college educated. Although he spent time in New York City, his predisposition is to remain on the outskirts of larger urban areas, which may have lent his voice a certain rural tone and perspective. Geographically between New England and the Midwest, the subject displays a fairly typical dialect for the south shore of Lake Ontario.

The overall cadence is somewhat slower and more relaxed compared to many NYC dialects. Although this subject shares some of the nasality associated more with Buffalo and Midwestern dialects, it’s noticeably lighter. And unlike many rural Ontario dialects from just north of the lake, the post-vocalic and final [t] is often voiced [d] as in “veterinary” [ˈvɛdɚˌᵊnɛɚɨ] or glottalized [ʔ] as in “kit” [kɪʔ]. This is a very light glottal stop though and may feel rather absent in many cases. Also, the unrounded back vowel [ɑ] in “job” [ʤɑb] and “odd” [ɑd] are distinct from the more rounded, short [ɒ] as in [ʤɒb] and [ɒd], which is more typical north of the Canadian border.

Interestingly, this subject uses the more British pronunciation of “futile” [ˈfjuˌtaɪɫ] rather than the more common American pronunciation of [ˈfjuˌdɫ]. Perhaps this might owe to the emphasis he was giving the word in the moment.

COMMENTARY BY: Adam Lane Bergquist

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 30/08/2019

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