Pennsylvania 9

Listen to Pennsylvania 9, a 59-year-old man from Clifton Heights and Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 59

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 20/02/1951

PLACE OF BIRTH: Uniontown, Pennsylvania

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: maintenance mechanic for a small private college

EDUCATION: high school

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

The subject was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, though he was raised in both Clifton Heights and Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, in Delaware County.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

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

RECORDED BY: Patricia Helsel

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 22/06/2010

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

I was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, which is in [the] southwestern part of the state, but I was raised in the southeastern part of Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia. [I] went to Clifton Heights High School. I’ve been in the U.S. Air Force as a medic; I’ve, uh, worked as a mechanic in garages; I’ve been a steel worker for twenty six years, and I’ve been a maintenance worker at, uh, Swarthmore College for the past eight and a half years. I was a millwright mechanic and a crane mechanic and inspector. Uh, we made, uh, products of (sheet steel products) uh, which [are] used for a variety of appliances, automobiles, structural materials. And I’ve [clears throat] worked on all types of machinery, uh, pumps, motors, um, rolling mills, temper mills, furnaces. Did welding, uh, machine shop operations and, uh, my father was a, uh, had a automobile garage, and we did some machine work there rebuilding engines, transmissions, every, every, every mechanical component on a car and, uh, so the job opportunity came to me to work in a steel plant, and, uh, working on much bigger machinery. Uh, eventually I wound up being the crane mechanic [that] took care of forty-five cranes and hoists for the plant. They had about eight hundred workers there. Uh, [the] steel plant closed along with other, other plants and, uh, found work at the co- where – the community where I live, as a maintenance mechanic. And my primary job duties there are, uh, heating, air conditioning, and ventilation systems, but I also do plumbing and any other needed repairs or adjustments.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Patricia Helsel

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 22/06/2010

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

One can find a variety of Philadelphia-like dialects in the southeastern suburbs of the city. This particular dialect is from a resident of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, a thirty-minute train commute to Philadelphia. The following words and combinations from the unscripted recording are distinctly identifiable in the southeastern Pennsylvania dialect: pʊɑrt (part); æʊt ‘saɪd (outside); həaɪ skʊ:l (high school); bɪn ɪn:ə (been in the); fuors (force); for də pæst (for the past); mə kæ:n ɪk (mechanic); məou dɚz (motors); kʊɑr (car); hɔists (hoists); kləouzd (closed); and ʊɑr (are).

COMMENTARY BY: Patricia Helsel

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 22/06/2010

The archive provides:

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• 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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