New Zealand 18

Listen to New Zealand 18, a 45-year-old woman from Dunedin, New Zealand, and the 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: 45

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 02/06/1968

PLACE OF BIRTH: Dunedin, New Zealand

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Chinese

OCCUPATION: N/A

EDUCATION: undergraduate degree

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

Subject was born and raised in Dunedin, on the South Island of New Zealand, but she moved to California, in the United States, at age 21, where she was still residing at the time of this interview.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

Subject’s father is from China. Her mother is also Chinese but hails from the United Kingdom. It should be noted that the majority of the subject’s life has been spent away from New Zealand, so this has likely diluted her dialect to some extent.

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

RECORDED BY: Jackie Summers (under supervision of David Nevell)

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 24/03/2014

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Um, I was born in New Zealand, in a town called Dunedin. It’s the fourth-largest city in, uh, New Zealand; it’s in the South Island. It’s a Scottish city where I grew up. I grew up in a fishing port, Port Chalmers, within we lived on the, the coast, uh, on a hill; this is a hilly city. It was a Scottish city. Uh, my backyard was the ocean, the beach; my front yard was th- the harbor, and the sight of the city on the other side. I grew up, um, in a fishing port, like I said. Um, my dad was from China, and my mum was Chinese, and we are actually Chinese, and we grew up in, uh, Dunedin. I have three siblings: an older brother, two younger sisters, and, um, I came over to America when I was 21.

At the time, when I was younger, I, I loved Donny Osmond and Michael Jackson at the time, uh — the sing — uh, the music that was there. And the Bay City Rollers; they were a group from, um, England, or Scotland. And, I also like Kenny Rogers, so he was a little bit of country. OK, yeah, the first concert that I went to was, would you believe a Donny and Marie Osmond show? [laughter] They came to Dunedin when I was, uh, in my teens, and my mother came with me, and there was another New Zealand group that I went to see was called Spudeens. OK, my mum cooked a lot of Chinese food, so I enjoyed, um, the Chinese food part about it, but the British part of it was I liked fish and chips. Um, we had that as battered fish, and, um, fried chips. You know you call them fries, and we called them chips, much thicker. Um, my favorite dish that my mum used to make … let’s see … eggs; I like a lot of chicken eggs, with, uh, bacon. And peas. That was my favorite, on rice, on white rice. And that was a special; I can, you know, I enjoy eating that. But the best New Zealand food I like enjoying were meat pies. And they were, uh, mince pies with steak and kidney pies.

Well, OK, my pet, P-E-T? I hate, I hate askin’, people askin’ me, “So where you from?” It’s like, “Oh, I love your accent!” Da da da da, you know, that can be behind the scenes; that’s one of my pet peeves. And then, uh, people that, uh, are not efficient. I mean, I expect people to do what I want them to do; I, uh, want people to be on the same page as I am. You know so if they wanted — I want them to do what I want them to do and then we on the same … same level kind of thing. I don’t want people high- lower than me, you know, tryin’ to be who they’re not. Otherwise, that’s about it, and I don’t like people that don’t ta- take accountability for what thei- their actions. If they do something wrong, apologize! You know? Don’t just give another an- answer so you don’t take the blame, you know?

TRANSCRIBED BY: Jackie Summers (under supervision of David Nevell)

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 06/05/2014

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.