Scotland 8

Listen to Scotland 8, a 21-year-old man from Elgin, Scotland. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 21

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1979

PLACE OF BIRTH: Elgin, Scotland

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: drama student

EDUCATION: When recorded, subject was in his final year at drama school.

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

The subject lived in Dundee for one year and moved to Glasgow to study at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama more than two years before the recording.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

Possibly his drama studies had an influence.

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

RECORDED BY: Ros Steen

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 2001

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 come from Elgin, which is in, eh, the northeast of Scotland. It’s eh, it’s a town; ehm, it’s quite big, very big. It’s quite a historical town, full of old history, and most of it due to the cathedral, cathedral in Elgin; and it has a famous story behind it: Eh, the Wolf of Badenoch, eh, burnt down Elgin Cathedral back in the, back in old times, but it’s, uh, it’s a very nice place, very nice. Eh, well back home I did, ehm … there’s … that was what I used to do in school, plays and, eh, singing, and then I did some amateur work, and then I just moved to, ehm, Dundee and did a national certificate down there for a year, and then came to to Glasgow, when I’m now studying at the RSAMD [Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama] in my final year, but, uh, it was always something that I, I enjoyed quite a lot; it’s good to get the chance to just fulfill your dreams, I suppose.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Faith Harvey

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 19/07/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

As with many Scots speakers, this subject speaks Standard English in the accent of his area, rather than speaking in the stronger dialect, which also prevails in that part of the country. Note the slightly retracted /r/ rather than any suggestion of rolling or trilling. He has the East Coast pitch lift on stressed words (bigger cathedral, Dundee, final year), as well as glottalling in words such as put and waiting. Some natural shyness leads to the slightly slower pace of delivery and its hesitant feel.

COMMENTARY BY: Ros Steen

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 2001

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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