Sweden 7

Listen to Sweden 7, a 57-year-old woman from Munkedal (Bohuslän province) and Stockholm, Sweden. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 57

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 20/02/1962

PLACE OF BIRTH: Munkedal (Bohuslän province), Sweden

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Caucasian/Swedish

OCCUPATION:

The speaker is currently not employed; her prior professional work was in the field of business administration.

EDUCATION: university degree

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The speaker has lived approximately six years of her life outside Sweden (Boston, Massachusetts, United States, for four years; Bradford, United Kingdom, for one year; and Paris, France, for one year).

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The speaker resided for 15 years in Gothenburg (the second largest city in Sweden, on the west coast) and for 10 years in Stockholm, Sweden’s capital. She mentioned that her time in Stockholm had a strong influence on her speech. She also noted that although she was raised in Munkedal, neither of her parents had a strong local accent from the west coast.

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

RECORDED BY: Bryn Austin

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 08/10/2019

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

In Sweden, we love the summer, because, uh, for some part of the year it’s very dark in Sweden. As Sweden is situated in the Northern Hemisphere, so the tilting of the Earth’s axle, uh, is important for, for the weather in Sweden. So up in the north of Sweden, in December — for instance in Kiruna — the sun never rise; it’s night all day long, and the other way round in the summer. Like in, from June to July, the sun never sets; you have the midnight sun. And from the southern part where I come from, we have not that extreme, but in the summer we have very long day, like daylight for like seventeen hours, and in the winter the opposite, of course: The sun may rise at 8:30 and sets about 3 o’clock. So, and I think, um, the weather had made an impact on the Swedish, uh, character.

Eh, and in the summer, we adore, we adore the summer, of course, because, uh, we have light, and we can be outdoor; the weather is quite nice. And we celebrate Midsummer. I think that’s the main Swedish, um, uh, mmm, festive date — how would you say, uh, celebration? Uh, it’s, it’s around twentieth of June, and, eh, we start in the morning by raising the pole; we make like, this, uh, big giant pole with flowers and leaves, and, uh, then we dance around this pole, and there’s a band playing, and we’re dancing silly dance and singing. And for lunch, we usually have herring and schnapps and beer, and then in the afternoon or late at night we usually have a barbecue, and, uh, then you can do some dancing until the early morning. …

[The speaker recites the following sentence in Swedish]: Det är lite som Astrid Lindgrens Pippi Långstrump i hennes Villa Villekulla: Jag ska göra världen som jag vill att den ska vara.

[Translation: It is a little bit like Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstocking in her Villa Villekulla: I will make the world the way I want it to be.]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Bryn Austin

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 08/10/2019

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The speaker uses aspirated [tʰ] in most instances. She also tends to devoice [z] when it occurs in final position but is spelled with an /s/ (disease, because, leaves). There is light rhoticity, but this tends to happen in final position (tire, measure, summer, weather); in medial position, there tends to be little or no r-coloration on the vowel preceding the /r/ (Harrison, very, herring). In her interview, the speaker mentioned she has been working diligently to master the /th/ sounds used in spoken English. In this sample, you can hear occasional instances of dentalized [d̪] for voiced /th/ (bathe, the, weather), and at times there is a slight “over-correction” of voiceless /th/ (mouth, ether).

COMMENTARY BY: Bryn Austin

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 09/10/2019

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.