England Eighteen - Text

TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED CONVERSATION

Liverpool's a city that attracts a lot of attention. *It its people tend to be quite outgoing. Um and they also tend to have quite a lot of get-up-and-go. It's also a city that's been through a lot of of difficulties over the last thirty years. And before, really, um but in particular the last thirty years. Very high unemployment, and because of that a lot of Liverpudlians have travelled to other parts of the country to find work. There's also been a lot of bad press about the city. Um people have an image, that is perpetuated by the media really, of of the way that the people of Liverpool are and who they are. Um one of the biggest stereotypes, I would say, is of the comedian or, like, the chirpy chappy that kind of comes along and entertains. And you find like when you travel away, as I did when I first moved away, people kind of want to stick you in a cage and prod you with a stick so you'll entertain them, with jokes or whatever. Um one of the things that like feeds into that is the different expressions that we have. Um we do have a lot of different ways of saying things, um that people find odd or find amusing. Um we don't say things straightforwardly really. We tend to find *an image for it, a metaphor, or whatever. Um somebody who's on their own is "on the Bill" or is a "Billy-no-mates". Somebody who, I dunno, lots of things, those, all those sort of things.

(* = vocalic pause)

Transcribed August 31, 2007 by Kevin Flynn, Associate Editor for Transcriptions

This 31 year old is an excellent example of a "Scouse" female. Although educated in Cardiff, Wales for 3 years, this actress and teacher has retained her Liverpudlian sounds. Her entire family is also from Liverpool. The subject has some of the major sounds of Liverpool that lend themselves to the stereotypical "Scouser" sound. Interviewed by Lise Olson. Edited by Paul Meier. Recorded 06/24/00. Running time 00:03:09. Text file written by Lise Olson and Heather Jewell.

England Sixty-two - Text

The speaker is female, born 1985 and raised in South-East London. Except for summer holidays in Grantham in the Midlands, and extensive, but brief travels in other parts of the world, she is a Londoner through and through. Her father is from Grantham, and her mother is from Sri Lanka. She was a student studying drama the University of Kent at Canterbury, with a year at the University of Kansas, when Paul Meier interviewed her there in November, 2006. Notice the contemporary vowels in her GOAT, GOOSE, and FOOT lexical sets.

Recording made by Paul Meier, November 8th, 2006. Running time: 06:03

TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH

I was born at Guy’s Hospital in London and I grew up in South Norwood, Southeast London and...uh...I have…um, one sister, she’s five years older than me and we’re a bit of a big family in the ruhsp, in…because we’ve got a lot of animals or have had a lot of animals, uh, and uh, let’s see let me list all the animals. Apart from loads of, uh, fish because that’s all we were allowed for years and years, we’ve had in the past two rabbits, two guinea pigs, two parrots and a dog and at the moment, we’ve only got my dog and one parrot. All the others have passed away. It was a very sad time for us all. But, you know, we get over it. Um…I go to um…Kent at Canterbury University. Uh...I’ve been there for two years. This is my third year at uni but I’m now here in America in Kansas and apparently I’m already picking up a dialect over here. Um…I um...I enjoy drama, acting, swimming. I’m a lifeguard back home so that’s why I enjoy swimming. Uh, I suppose you really need to be a good swimmer to be a lifeguard. But, uh, I do ok. Uh, I do miss my job, actually and I miss swimming a lot, but um anyway, back to, uh,  my hobbies...um I like art, music-just mainly having a laugh-going out with my friends and drinking and getting pissed, pretty, pretty much…um good times. I enjoy playing pool and darts. It reminds me of my childhood. Because in Grantham, if you ever go, there’s absolutely nothing to do, it’s deserted. It’s in the midlands in England and it’s very cold but my sister and I as children, would go to this little club, and old, old age pensioner’s place, you know, uh, my aunt owned and the only thing we could do was sip on Coke and play pool and darts, but that’s why I pretty much like playing those old games and I love playing dominoes and card games because I liked to gamble at a very early age thanks to the old age pensioners. How long was I in Grantham? Well, when we were little, we used to go at least once a year...uh mainly for two weeks but I think on one occasion, we went for a month. But usually once a year, maybe twice and then that kind of stopped after I was about ten, I stopped going because it was a long drive and, uh, yeah, I was scared of my aunt because my dad, last time I was there my, buh, before that you know, well, when I was ten, my dad left me alone there and I hated it. It was,  there was nothing to do and it just rained and it was horrible. But, um, then I went-the last time I went back was uh when I was fifteen for approximately, uh,  around seven or eight days and, uh, the last time I went back would’ve been, uh, when I was about eighteen-seventeen or eighteen, um and that was only for a day……

UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY PHIL HUBBARD 20 MAY, 2008

England Seventy-two - Text

The subject’s closing description of her accent is a useful one. In unscripted use there are features which fall within both Estuary and Traditional RP parameters. However, the overall effect is indeed that of subtly ‘Estuary-flavoured RP’, rather than ‘RP-flavoured Estuary’. The more Contemporary elements include a slightly ‘bouncier’ speech rhythm and less lip-rounding of back vowel /u/ than is associated with Traditional RP. On the more conservative side are the relatively pure RP GOAT and FACE and a tendency to distinguish starkly between long and short vowels.

·         Slightly backed NURSE vowel on ‘work’ similar to an elongated STRUT

·         Monothongisation of SQUARE

·         Relatively open DRESS vowel closer to Cardinal 3 than 2

·         Fairly sparing use of elision in set passage: /d/ is released clearly in ‘Comma was strong and huge, and it would take some force to trap her’, ‘andgive her a relaxing bath’; /t/ has audible release in ‘her efforts were not futile’

·         NEAR vowel in ‘idea’ realised as a monophthong

·         Retracted first element of PRICE vowel eg in ‘right side’

·         2-syllable realisation of ‘med(i)cine’. This is a more conservative RP

·         pronunciation

·         Fronted MOUTH vowel, especially in unscripted segment

·         Affrication of intervocalic /t/ eg ‘start a new job’, ‘foot and mouth’

·         Monophthongised central CURE vowel

So my own accent, erm, I’ve got quite a fluid accent which I think is quite common, with people- young people- erm, living in the South of England so I think we kind of erm, get used to fitting in with very different social groups, so when I speak to my parents, who have much more…of a conservative RP sound than I do, even though they’re actually from the North of England and have consciously chosen to adopt this accent…I find that I do sort of ‘tidy up’ the way that I’m speaking. My mum is constantly telling me off about my erm, ‘No’ sound, she’s always saying ‘Nohyue!*’(cod Australian pronunciation of ‘No’) and says I sound like people off ‘Neighbours (Australian soap opera popular in the UK, sometimes said  to have influenced young British Estuary speakers over the past 10-20 years)

So erm, I’m kind of consciously aware of tidying that one up, and also my consonants, but, when I’m with other friends, from the area that I live in, I’m very much aware that my…the way that I speak…is perceived as being a lot more posh than the way they might so I’m kind of consciously- and subconsciously to a certain extent end up talking, in a way you know with a lot less precision in my consonants, less difference between my vowels, so I’m aware that it’s very fluid. And also when I’m with people with different accents, I do tend to pick up different traits that they have too, so erm, notice a bit of a rhotic ‘r’ coming in which is think from the 4 years that I spent living in Scotland.

So er, I do tend to assimilate various little elements from different accents and build them into my own Estuary-flavoured RP sound.

Interviewed by Marina Tyndall, 14th December 2007

Running time 00:03:51