Shanxi 1

Listen to Shanxi 1, a 20-year-old woman from Tai Yuan, Shanxi Province, China. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 20

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1985

PLACE OF BIRTH: Tai Yuan, Shanxi Province

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Chinese (exact ethnicity unknown)

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: When recorded, subject was in her first year as a theatre student.

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

Subject came to live in the United States one year before the date of the recording.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

Subject began to learn English a the age of 13, in her junior high school.

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

RECORDED BY: Paul Meier

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 14/09/2005

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Uh, I was born in China, uh, Shanxi, China. Uh, my, uh, my hometown is Tai Yuan. It’s the capital of Shan Xi. Uh, and I started to learn English, uh, while I was in junior high, as, uh, just like the other people. So, uh, I, uh, right now I’ve been learning English for seven years and I stay in Mer – in America for one year. And, uh, uh, right now I’m studying theatre, although I have no experience. In China I’ve been tra-, uh, I’ve been traveling a lot, uh, traveling, traveling a lot. I’ve been to Qingdao, um, Shanghai, Beijing, I be-, I’ve been, I’ve been to Beijing a lot because Tai Yuan is close to Beijing. And, uh, other places, uh, like Ciwu, you must know that. Just some, yeah, just some places near Shanghai, and Nanjing, Chenjing, something like that. Uh, my hometown is very peaceful. I love it a lot. Like, I think in China that everywhere, everywhere is like that, although maybe Beijing and Shanghai is a little mi-, a little bit more busier, you know? But, still, people’s life are very relaxing. Like, in the morning when you are going to school or when you are going to work or something, you can see people are practicing, you know, we are, they are, uh, exercising – play Tai Chi, in the park – and people are very … I think, like, people may not have so, as many things as American people have, but they are having a very good life be-, be enjoying their life a lot. Chi-, like, Chi-, China … I think everywhere is very crowded, except those desert … desert … there is somewhere … but, it’s very crowded everywhere. Although, my homeland’s very crowded, but it’s still, it’s very crowded, it’s like, it has three million people. Uh, so, yeah. American people might not like there, but it’s still, I love it a lot. So here is a very, uh, old poetry fro-, uh, from, uh, an ancient po-, poet. Uh, his name is Li Yu. [RECITES POEM IN MANDARIN] I forgot. [laughs]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Pete Cross

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 15/07/2008

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:

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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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