Ontario 31

Listen to Ontario 31, a 55-year-old woman from Burlington, Toronto, and Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. 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: 55

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1953

PLACE OF BIRTH: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: theatre designer and teacher

EDUCATION: some college

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

The subject was raised in Burlington, Toronto, and Ottawa. She lived in London, England, for three years in her early twenties, and in New York City when she was 30. She was living in Toronto at the time of this recording.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject’s mother had a thick Belgian accent.

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): 19/01/2009

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Uh, this is a story from my childhood, when I was around 8, or 9, or 10, I guess 8 or 9. Uh, I lived in Burlington, Ontario.  We lived in what was then semi-rural, on a dirt road, uh, before it was built up and developed.  And we lived in a house that had about an acre and a half of land, and on a dirt road that had only six other houses on it, so it was quite, it was quite, um, full of nature, I guess. Um, I used to sleep outside in a tent in the summer.  I thought this was very adventurous.  And I used to like to cook my breakfast on a, a little fire I would make in the gravel driveway.  So I would set my little fire, and I had a little flying pan, and I would cook eggs on the little frying pan, and then, after I’d eaten my breakfast, I would clean the frying pan with gravel and dirt, because I wanted to pretend that I was living in the woods all the time with nothing.  And then I would decide, I decided I would try to catch animals with a snare that I would make with white string and safety pins, uh, because I was going to live, as I thought, like the Indians, and hunt and trap and get all my food that way.  And, uh, I didn’t want to use the house at all, because I was living outside, and I was trying to be this Indian child.  And, um, I used to climb in and out of my bedroom window, which was a ground floor bedroom, uh, so that I wouldn’t have to go in through the house.  And, to this day, I can’t believe that my parents allowed me to light fires in the driveway, uh, although I was very good and responsible about it.  Um, and I loved sleeping in the tent; I thought it was just the best thing in the world, and if I could have slept in the tent all year round, that would have suited me just fine.

TRANSCRIBED BY: John Fleming

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 19/01/2009

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

Though the BATH and TRAP lexical sets are merged, the BATH lexical set is lowered slightly, closer to [a] (e.g., “bath”).  The PRICE lexical set undergoes “Canadian raising” before a voiceless consonant but not before a voiced consonant (e.g., “price” but not “pride”).  The MOUTH lexical set also undergoes “Canadian raising” before a voiceless consonant but not before a voiced consonant (e.g., “mouth” but not “around”).   Her /s/ sounds are all very high in pitch, and very aspirated (e.g., “Sarah was sentimental…”).  All the fricative consonants are very aspirated (e.g., “much, washed”).  Her tongue is very tight to her alveolar ridge on her /s/ sounds, causing the slight whistle.  The /s/ changes depending on the following consonant, such as in “sleep,” where the sound moves toward the /l/, resulting in a sound closer to [ʃ].  A different change occurs in “story,” where the /s/ is higher and tighter to the alveolar ridge in preparation for the hard /t/. 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 31 is featured as sample number 31 on that page.

COMMENTARY BY: John Fleming

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 19/01/2009

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.