Ontario 1

Listen to Ontario 1, a 71-year-old woman from Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 71

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1928

PLACE OF BIRTH: Windsor, Ontario, Canada

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: tutor

EDUCATION: college

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

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

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

RECORDED BY: Cynthia Blaise

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 18/08/1999

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Canada’s interesting cause we are known to be … I guess I would even use conservative and boring, which is kind of sad but that’s I, I think how we look at each other. We lack the fire and the “go for freedom” that Americans have, I think, so I find that frustrating, and it’s weird ’cause our country’s gargantuan, and there’s 26 million of us, and you guys have that what, in Michigan, so that’s what’s weird about, I guess, part of being in Canada, but it’s gorgeous, if I had to, if they said you can’t go anywhere out of your country for the rest of your life, I would pick Canada just cause it’s absolutely stunning. I went to University of Windsor, which is, in Windsor, not terribly big, but it had a good engineering program, and they were doing a big push for getting women in engineering, and I fell for it; I went, I have no idea why I went there, but it was a good party for four years. Food, well, we got everything, everything you can think of we got almost every kind of restaurant you possibly want. Um, I’m not in Windsor as much as Kingsville; we’re lucky is that we have tons and tons and tons of vegetables. Uh, y’know rarely do I see in Windsor or in the States any side-road places to buy food, and if you were out in the Kingsville-Leamington area you could, all the way down lined in both sides are uh, are greenhouses now and tomatoes and peppers and zuchinni, and everything you could possibly think of and it’s, it’s a treat we’re so lucky that we have that ’cause a lot of people don’t so that’s nice. The improv, I, I don’t know; I love it I’m so lucky a friend of mine he has, he has friends who did theater sports in Toronto and thought I would be good at something like that instead of doing stand-up comedy, do more group type stuff where, y’know, something’s thrown at you, ’cause we do that at Toastmasters, uh, table topics, it’s called, where they throw you a topic; I mean you’ve got to take it and run with it and go wherever you want, which is a bit of improv; and someone told me about the training center here, and the best way to break into an area, I suppose, would be to get to know the business. And Second City made sense ’cause Windsor has a small, sad little drama place; and I don’t know where I want to go; I love writing, so I’m learning about the writing. I’m just gonna suck it all up like a sponge because in the past I’ve never really thrown myself into anything, and I really want to do it with this.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Faith Harvey

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 07/07/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

You will hear a good example of quick, clipped speech, with strong r-coloration; the familiar Canadian pronunciation of “house” and “about”; and also a very high front monophthong for the long “a” in “paint” and “face.” This subject has her generation’s “creaky” voice.

COMMENTARY BY: Cynthia Blaise

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 18/08/1999

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).

 

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