South Africa 3

Listen to South Africa 3, an 18-year-old man from Pretoria, South Africa. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 18

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1982

PLACE OF BIRTH: Pretoria, South Africa

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Zulu

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: basic education and also arts school

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

Subject lived in Mpumalanga Province and also Johannesburg.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

His father is a well-known actor in South Africa.

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

RECORDED BY: Yvette Hardie

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 23/05/2000

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Oh, actually, my parents are not married. So, I was born in Pretoria and later my, my mother’s family moved to Mpumalanga Province. So I grew up there; then when I was 15, I moved to Pretoria because my father said I must come there. I’m starting to be, to be a man, so I must be under, under his hand. Ja [yes or yeah], so, ja, I stayed in Pretoria. I did grade eight there. So, OK, I had a problem with my grandmother; so, my father said it’s better, to, to live with him, so I moved to Johannesburg and I did my, um, grade nine. Ja, grade eight to the arts school, national school of the arts, where actually now, currently I’m doing drama, studying drama. Ja, I’d say, ja, my father – he is also an actor, so sometimes, ja, we talked, we talked about acting. But, you know at school when they’ve given me assignments, I try actually to by myself, to find if I’m like really talented at this thing, you know, to find discoveries by myself. So, I do that and come to school and present them, you find that, OK, they are good; then I start actually to have confidence in what I’m doing. I don’t have many friends where I’m living. But, um, weekends I like to go with my sisters to the movies, cause I don’t have friends. Actually, I have friends at school but where I’m staying I don’t. So, ja, I actually have friends in Mpumalanga, where I grew up. So I have friends, but sometimes I don’t like to hang around with them because actually they are doing things which I don’t like, like smoking, drinking, actually doing things which are out of the way. And actually I know what I want to do, and I know what I want, so those things won’t get me where I want to go. So, ja. Oh, my father, actually, he’s involved in both theatre and, um, television. So in theatre he’s a market theatre; he’s a resident director and in television actually in, um, in a soapie, ja, playing the main character, Archie the womaniser. Ja, so my father is a, he’s a very, um, his not straight, but actually, he likes actually to operate, he operates openly with me, you know, so I do the same with him, you know. We talk about a lot of things, girls, everything; we talk about everything, you know. So the relationship with my father is very, very close. So, actually we cement, it’s a cement. Ja, so we talk about a lot of things. Oh, my dreams, um, I would like to be actually a movie director.

TRANSCRIBED BY: original (partial) transcription by Elizabeth Terrel; current (full) transcription by Karina Lemmer

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 16/01/2008 and 11/05/2014

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The repetitive use of the word “actually” is a typical marker of teenage speech. Notice the lengthening of short vowel sounds (in words like “yellow”) and the shortening of the long vowels. The pronunciation of “girls” is typical. The “r” pronunciation should be noted. Also of interest is the use of stress in “FOREtell” and “womanIzer.”

COMMENTARY BY: Yvette Hardie

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 23/05/2000

The archive provides:

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