Texas 12

Listen to Texas 12, a woman in her 40s from Austin and east Texas, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 40s

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1950s

PLACE OF BIRTH: Austin, Texas

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: data analyst

EDUCATION: N/A

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

The subject has lived in Texas (east and central regions) all of her life.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

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

RECORDED BY: Pamela Christian

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 01/12/2001

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 think my parents were, um, y’ know really nice parents, an’ they — an’ they sat there and, um, gave us kids a lot of freedom, but with some structure. And, let’s see, specifically neat about growing up in Texas … um, I used to sit there an’ I g– … I went, um — My grandparents had a, uh, grocery store, um, hamburger stand in Alamo Heights in Texas. An’, um, every summer, uh, from the time I was 13 to about 16, uh, I went down there and, uh, worked for them. An’ I took, um — I worked a split shift, with my grandmother. An’ we would go in about 10 o’clock and work till about 2 o’clock, through the lunch run, and then we would go to, uh, home, an’ we would take a nap. And, uh, then we would sit there an’, uh, come back at about 6. Mmm, 5 o’clock, 6 o’clock, an’ then work until closing, which was …

TRANSCRIBED BY: Jacqueline Baker

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 22/07/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

Subject’s dialect is typical more of East Texas than of Austin. Subject demonstrates the East Texas dialect typified by a hard press on certain sounds, and the elongation of vowels that make for a musical lilt. The “er” sound is hard and slightly lengthened on words such as “world,” “bird,” and “mother.” Short vowels are lilted (with a y sound extension) on words such as “stressed,” “letter,” “Texas,” “split,” “kids,” “switch,” and “hamburger,” “fancy,” and “stand.” The short “i” opens to the “ah” sound, as in “finally,” “right,” and “surprising.” Long “a”s and long “e”s are preceded by a schwa (a slight dip down on “uh” before pronouncing the vowel), as in “freedom,” “sixteen,” “three and rare,” “basis,” and “place.” Special pronunciations: caesar salad = ceazure salad, mansion = manjun, and job=jawb. Also note the pronunciations of “thang,” “anythang,” and  “warshed.”

COMMENTARY BY: Pamela Christian

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 01/12/2001

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).

 

For instructional materials or coaching in the accents and dialects represented here, please go to Other Dialect Services.