Portugal 1

Listen to Portugal 1, a 62-year-old man from Ilha São Miguel, Azores Islands, Portugal. 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: 62

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 10/07/1948

PLACE OF BIRTH: Ilha São Miguel, Azores, Portugal

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Portuguese/Caucasian

OCCUPATION: retired construction work

EDUCATION: grade 4

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

The subject was born and raised in Água Retorta, Ilha São Miguel, in the Azores Islands. He worked there and eventually traveled to Fall’s River, Massachusetts, United States, and then moved to Toronto, Canada, where he was living at the time of this interview. He also spent 25 months in Terreiro, in Northern Angoa.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject began learning English  naturally (not scholastically) in Fall’s River, Massachusetts, in the United States.

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): 12/11/2010

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

The story [of] of my life:  I’m born the nineteenth July, nineteen forty-eight, in small town in Portugal, Ilha São Miguel, island. The name of the town, Água Retorta.  I’m 7 years old, I go … started school.  I stay in school from 7, 11, take the grade four, from Portugal.  I work from the 11 years old and 20 years old.  Twenty years old, my father and my mom, and my two young brothers, they go onto America.  I want to go there, but I can’t; the government wouldn’t have allow me to go there because I’m 20 years old; you need to go in the war, and the, and the army, no?  And, November, nineteen seventy-two, I marry my wife, here, she go and marry me in America.  I’m stay there from seventy-two and seventy-five.  I’m working the factory, making the carpets, and make something, from 3:30 in afternoon and 11, 10 at the night.  After that I started work in the roofing.  Marrying my wife, I stay there from seventy-five an seventy-seven.  In seventy-six, I go back Portugal – and my wife – for two months, and seventy-seven, September, I buy this house.  Uh, I started work on the foundations, after that … in nineteen seventy-nine, I’m in this house.  After that, I go work at the lumber yard, big lumber yard … Shaw and Dupont.  I work for five years there.  Uh, in nineteen, uh, ninety-five, I go work for the formings again.  In nineteen ninety-nine, two-thousand one, two-thousand four, two-thousand and four.

TRANSCRIBED BY: John Fleming

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 12/11/2010

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The “kit” lexical set sounds move to approach [i], heard in “seventy-six” in the unscripted speech. Many of the final consonants are dropped or lightened substantially, heard in “lumber yard.” Also, /th/ sounds are often dropped, heard in “they go onto” in the unscripted speech, or are replaced with /d/, heard often with “the” in the unscripted speech.

COMMENTARY BY: John Fleming

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 12/11/2010

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.