South Africa 13

Listen to South Africa 13, a 20-year-old woman from Paarl, Western Cape, South Africa. 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: Paarl, in the wine district of the Western Cape

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Black South African

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: Subject was in her third year studying drama in college when recorded.

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

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

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

RECORDED BY: Marth Munro and Karina Lemmer

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 10/2005

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

I was born in a small town named Paarl. It’s, it’s a small town near Capetown and the most English (um) accents came from… influence came, comes from Capetown.  (um) I’m a drama student third year, and, yes, it’s very nice to be here and enjoy the language.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Elizabeth Terrel

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 16/01/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

A 21-year-old black female discusses her hometown Paarl, a town in the wine district of the Western Cape. Her use of syllable stress and inflection is typical of the Cape Colored dialect. Other typical features are the pre-vocalic trilled /R/ and the use of voiceless plosive consonants at the ends of words. For example: /side/ became /site/ and /job/ became /jop/. Signature elements of the dialect are also reflected in her articulation of vowels. One such prominent sound is the /æ/ sound as in “imagine” that became /e/ /imedʒin/. The Afrikaans of the Cape Colored speakers is often characterized by the longer duration that they provide to certain sounds. This is potentially transferred to her English.

COMMENTARY BY: Marth Munro

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 10/2005

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.