Pennsylvania 10

Listen to Pennsylvania 10, a 29-year-old man from Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 29

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 07/01/1981

PLACE OF BIRTH: Drexel Hill (but grew up in Swarthmore)

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: engineering

EDUCATION: B.S. in civil engineering

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

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

For about four years, the subject had a truck-driving job that took him to the Great Lakes area and also into the South.

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

RECORDED BY: Patricia Helsel

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 06/05/2010

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 – what is it? – Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania. But, I, uh – grew up in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, and, uh, I’ve worked at , uh – I worked at the dining hall at Swarthmore College; uh, working in the dish room; uh, just loading and unloading dirty dishes, and, you know, clean dishes. And, uh – I, uh, worked at a Wawa convenience store, uh, for about a year, uh, doing just about anything there — cashier. Uh, then I, uh, I ended up getting into a truck-driving job; uh, which I did about, f- little over four years. It was, uh — I hauled a lot of automotive parts so I mostly went into the, uh — like cities around the Great Lakes region; uh, occasionally into the South. Um, then I, I actually had about three years straight that I, uh – I just did a dedicated, uh, local run. Just, uh, driving back and forth from, uh, New Castle, Delaware, to Wilmington, Delaware, to the G. M. plant. Uh, just shuttling loads and, uh … I’m just going back to school right now, and, uh, trying to get  a— finish my, uh, civil engineering degree. And, I have transportation engineering, w’— yo u— which is like an intro to transportation, in general. And then, uh, I had, uh, reinforced concrete design; learning to do basic design for – like – you know – reinforcement Rebar and concrete beams and floors; and a … structural-analysis class that just, uh, like – uh, learning how to determine stresses and loads for, uh, structures. One I didn’t do very well in at all, actually, is, uh, soil mechanics, which is, uh – learning soil characteristics, and, and how soil, uh, reacts under pressures, and, and the like …

TRANSCRIBED BY: Patricia Helsel

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 30/08/2014

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The subject is a 29-year-old Caucasian male, who lives in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. While he was technically born in a hospital in Drexel Hill (just a few miles away), he lived in Swarthmore throughout his formative years. Swarthmore is on the “Mainline,” easily accessible by train from Philadelphia.

One distinguishable factor in this dialect is a notable omission of [ɝ] in pronunciation of Swarthmore, with a use of [ʊ] in the final syllable (as opposed to the typical [o]). The result is the following pronunciation: ˈswɑθ mʊɚ. The same pronunciation of the “or” combination can be heard in “store” [stʊɚ], as well.

Note the consistent precedence of [ɛ] with “o,” as in the pronunciation of the penultimate syllable in “automotive” [ɔ dɪ ˈmɛou dɪv]. There also exists a tendency toward slight vocalization in the articulation of “t,” toward a substitution of [d]. In some cases, when preceded by [n] (e.g., “in the” or “and the”), ð is eliminated, allying the two words, while slightly sustaining the [n].

Note the use of [æ], in addition to [a] in the final syllable in “about”[ə ˈbæaʊt]. The intrusion exemplifies an overall “forward” sound to the entire dialect. Contributing to the forward resonance, the subject appeared to articulate using a great deal of labial tension, manifest in pulling the lips far forward in glides such as “r” and “w,” while not releasing into the subsequent vowel.

COMMENTARY BY: Patricia Helsel

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 31/08/2014

The archive provides:

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• 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).

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