Saudi Arabia 4

Listen to Saudi Arabia 4, a 19-year-old woman from Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 19

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 27/02/1990

PLACE OF BIRTH: Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Saudi Arabian (exact ethnicity unknown)

OCCUPATION: college student

EDUCATION: some college study

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

At the time of the interview, the subject had lived in the United States for eight months.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

Subject had never spoken English prior to her relocation to the United States.

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

RECORDED BY: Keiko Suda (under supervision of David Nevell)

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 07/12/2009

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

I live with my father here in the United States, while my mother and two brothers are in my country in Saudi Arabia. My parents are divorced for more than 12 years now, and, um, I lived with my father since I was 7, because in my country, ehm, they think that a father can take care of the daughter more than her mother because, eh, in the old days, the women, uh, didn’t use to work, so, eh, eh the one whose responsibility, eh, responsible for the girl, it’s the father. There’s a lot of different things between Saudi Arabia and the United States. For example, the, in the business or work area, uh, a woman here is equal to the men, she can work anything, while in Saudi Arabia, the woman still can’t work in different area than, eh, teaching and business. So, also, ehm, here you can wear what you wa-, what you like when you go out. In my country we have to wear something called abaya, which is like a black dress that cover our body and a hijab which cover our hairs. Um, I like in the United State how we can express ourself, we can say anything we want without any worries, and, um, I love in my country that, um, uh, as a Muslim girl, uh, in my country there is, ehm, the holy place, which  we pray there, so I like it so much because, uh, I feel , uh, more related to God. Um, I miss in my country mostly my family, my mother and my brother, but I wish if they were, if they came here, I don’t think that I will go back to Saudi Arabia. Uh, my goals for the future. First I’m studying health science, I’m planning to be a doctor so I can treat people. Uh, also I want, eh, I think maybe I will go around the world and help poor people who cannot pay for the medicine and everything. And, for, every girl’s dream is to have a wedding and children, so yeah! Ah, I’m proud that I was able to come to the United States to study, because, it’s not, uh, open for everyone. So this make me proud because I can see that my father and my mother are proud of me. Uh, in my country, em, students who are, uh, very good, uh, in their studies have a scholarship. The government pay them the ah, ah, to study outside the Saudi Arabia and they give them, uh, every month a salary so they can pay the rent and buy stuff and everything. Uh, so this, em, this, uh, last years they started to, uh, give a lot of scholarship to students because, uh, give us an oppor, opporunity  to go outside and, uh, see how it’s outside and how they study there. [The subject speaks briefly in Arabic.  The phrase she speaks means, “I want to be a doctor.”]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Keiko Suda (under supervision of David Nevell)

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 07/12/2009

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY: N/A

COMMENTARY BY: N/A

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

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).

 

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