Saint Lucia 1

Listen to Saint Lucia 1, a 44-year-old woman from Saint Lucia, and the Virgin Islands. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 44

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 23/04/1966

PLACE OF BIRTH: Saint Lucia

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: N/A

OCCUPATION: unemployed

EDUCATION: high school

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

At the age of 13, the subject moved to the Virgin Islands to live in St. Thomas. She lived there until 1990, when she finally moved to Liberty City, New York. She then moved to Lakewood, in the Los Angeles area of California. In 2002, she moved to nearby Orange County in California.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

She first learned Patwe Creole (which is of French origin) at home. She would speak the language with her relatives while speaking English at school.

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

RECORDED BY: Edwin Martinez (under supervision of David Nevell)

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 15/11/2010

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Um, I was born in the Caribbean, um, the island of St. Lucia in the West Indies, and, um, I first traveled when I was about, let’s see, it’s been so long, 13 years old, I was about thir- 13 years old. Traveling was uh, it was pleasant, but at the same time it was a bit of a shock, cultural shock, cause um, in the Caribbean, w- when I was growing up, we, life was m—a lot more manual, you know you had to create a lot of things. You know cause m-m—it’s different, the economy its, it’s not as, like the U.S. Jobs are hard to get, there’s poverty, you, you have to work harder, you have to sell a lot of your time. To make sure that you stay out of poverty and- and that itself, it uh, it can do two things it can either make you a stronger person or it can make you fall apart if you don’t use your need to have better and more in life. If you don’t put that first, well, you just going to give up and say ‘well, it’s hard for everybody, I’m not the only one’, so, ‘let’s just leave an—let’s just take this’, but in—in my family we were really taught in—so many of us that when we come here it’s a beautiful opportunity cause then you don’t have to struggle as much cause you can find work, you can sell your time- so you can have a form of exchange where you can sell your time for money since you’re not a millionaire [unclear] so that was different, but at the same time life was beautiful. There’s a lot of people live in a closer community, they watch you more, they respect your life more, people have a better respect and a bigger respect for elderly people and there’s—in the family system, it’s, there’s a hierarchy, you know. When it’s abused it’s bad, but it’s also a beautiful thin, it’s a beautiful thing when it’s done correctly. If you learn how to respect people, and you give your presence in this world value, and the name of your family value, then you understand better. There’s certain things in life you just don’t do; so, like it is when uh, you growing up in a poor country, when you’re poor one of the biggest things you have is pride so. …

TRANSCRIBED BY: Edwin Martinez (under supervision of David Nevell)

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 15/11/2010

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

This is a more standard version of the dialect found in the Caribbean Islands not limited to the Island of Saint Lucia. The dialect is influenced by Spanish, French and various unique Creole languages. Although English is predominantly the official language of most of the Caribbean Islands, many of its inhabitants speak one or more other languages. This dialect is non-rhotic, meaning the R sound is left out on most words. In words such as start, hard and card,  the R sound is left out. Exception: Anytime the R sound is followed by a vowel or is the first letter in a word, the R is pronounced. Example: “Ring around the rosie,” and “It’s hard to start a card game when there’s no one around.” The dialect also has an “energized tongue.” For instance, in the Caribbean dialect, the tongue plays a major role in how the dialect is spoken. Almost every other syllable is made with the tongue making contact with the roof of the mouth. Along with this physical action, the sounds made in the Caribbean dialect tend to be more rounded than in other dialects. Example: “Don’t take the trial to the court.” Another feature of the dialect is the dental fricative. The Caribbean dialect does not use either [θ] and [ð] dental fricatives; instead, the tongue make contact with the alveolar and post-alveolar ridge, giving it more of a plosive sound [d] or [t] in words such as that, those and thee transcribed as [dæt] [dɔz] [di:] or words such as think, thought, throw transcribed as [tɪnk] [tɑ ət] [tə ɹɔ?w] Note: *voiced[ð] >[d] and *unvoiced[θ] >[t]. Example: “I think the man thought he had to throw the ball.” Still another feature of the dialect is the elongated vowel. Vowels tend to be elongated either because of the tempo of the dialect (a slow one) or to show emphasis or importance of words. Along with elongation, there is an up-and-down inflection in the pattern of speech in this dialect. In some instances, monothongs may be replaced with a dipthong sound. For example: purpose [pəɹpʌs] = [pəɹpous]. Another feature worth discussing is nasalized sounds/aspiration. Many of the sounds in the Caribbean dialect become nasalized because of the specific cadence that the dialect requires. Aspiration is also used, most frequently when words that end in a consonant are followed by a word that begins with a vowel. Example: “The Caribbean dialect is non-rhotic and aspirated.” It’s also worth talking about sound placement. The placement for sound in this dialect is focused in the mid-front of the mouth, the alveolar ridge. No sounds are dentalized. [t] and [d] are the closest consonants to being a dentalized sound. Lips are active throughout the dialect. Lastly, let’s look at vowel substitutions: In the bath lexical set, [æ] > [ɑ]. Example: bath, staff, after, demand.  In the cure lexical set, [ʊɚ] >[uə]. Example: cure, moor, poor, your. In the foot lexical set, [ʊ ] > [u]. Example: foot, put, woman, could. In the goat lexical set, [oʊ] > [ɔ]. Example: goat, road, note, soul. Finally, in the face lexical set, [eɪ] > [e:]. Example: face, tape, name, change.

COMMENTARY BY: Edwin Martinez (under supervision of David Nevell)

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 15/11/2010

The archive provides:

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• 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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