Ontario 20

Listen to Ontario 20, a 55-year-old woman from Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 55

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1953

PLACE OF BIRTH: Guelph, Ontario

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: health promoter with the regional government

EDUCATION: university degree

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

The subject lived in British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and Alberta for longer than a year each. At the time of this recording, she was living in the Halton region.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

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

RECORDED BY: John Fleming

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 24/11/2008

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 have two boys, and they couldn’t be more different if you tried.  I have a 29-year-old and a 22-year-old.  The oldest one is very strong minded, strong willed, and overpowering, overbearing; the other is quiet, subdued, sort of very, very easy-going.  Uh, they are sharing an apartment, because they’re both at university this year, so it really is, uh, the Odd Couple. We call it the Odd Couple living together.  Uh, the older boy likes to cook, and is a vegetarian; the younger boy is a strong meat eater, and doesn’t care for his vegetables, so they’re absolutely, as I say, opposite poles.  Uh, seem to be getting along, which is good, uh, however, uh, uh, as I say, um, you know, my husband’s going to go out and find out if, if they’re putting, putting it on, or whether they’re, uh, really getting along.  They both said they’re physically fit, because they’ve got gym equipment now in the middle of, uh, the living room, and they’re pressing weights, and I think they’re competing with one another.  Uh, so, a lot of our friends think, you know, they can’t imagine their older kids living together, but so far so good.  They haven’t killed one another; so that’s all positive.  And my husband’s going out on the sixth, and, um, uh, we’re going to have just – or he’s going to have sort of – a little, uh, fake Christmas, I guess we’d call it, instead of a real Christmas, ’cause we’re not going out at Christmas, and then we’ll see if, uh, the phone conversations and the what’s really going on are, are a true measure of how they’re getting along.  So that’s my little story.

TRANSCRIBED BY: John Fleming

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 4/11/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The r-coloring is quite heavy, especially when in a stressed position. The MOUTH lexical set undergoes “Canadian raising” before a voiceless consonant, but not before a voiced consonant (e.g., “mouth” but not “around”). Also, the PRICE lexical set undergoes “Canadian raising” before a voiceless consonant, but not before a voiced consonant (e.g., “price” but not “pride”). The KIT lexical set can be quite open when stressed within the sentence (e.g., “fit”). Medial [t] is either not pronounced or articulated as [d] (e.g., “deserted”). The DRESS lexical is quite open and has nasalization when following a nasal consonant. The TRAP lexical set also has nasalization (e.g., “happy”) and is merged with the BATH lexical set. The features of the dialect of mainstream English speakers in Ontario can be heard at Professor Eric Armstrong’s website (http://www.yorku.ca/earmstro/ontario/words_and_phrases.html). Ontario 20 is featured as sample number 20 on that page.

COMMENTARY BY: John Fleming

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 24/11/2008

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