England 106

Listen to England 106, a 43-year-old woman from Wandsworth, south London, England. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 43

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 09/01/1976

PLACE OF BIRTH: Merton/Wandsworth, south London

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: teacher and researcher

EDUCATION: master’s degree

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

The speaker lived in Germany for six months.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The speaker went to acting school in the UK; in her training, she was discouraged from speaking in her native dialect. Despite the emphasis on RP in her drama-school training, her south London accent is still strong and could even be generalized as Estuary.

At the time of the recording, she had been living for three months in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, where she was conducting research as a Fulbright scholar.

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): 01/04/2019

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

So, um, I was born in south London, um, in Wandsworth, which is, um, bordering on the boroughs of like Fulham, Hammersmith, and Chelsea, and Westminster, and I grew up there and went to primary school there, and also secondary school. Um, I think it’s interesting the — when we speak, we speak quite quickly; um, the London accent, or all parts of London accent, south London and north London, um, we tend to speak quite quickly and fluently. Um, and other people in our sort of conversational circle will always understand us; they’ll never say, “Can you speak slower?” because they don’t understand. Um, and there’s also a distinct, um, difference, um, between south and north London accents, and I can tell the difference between my friends that, um, I went to Guildford School of Acting with, who had the south London and, and who, who also had the north London accent.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Bryn Austin

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 08/04/2019

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY: N/A

COMMENTARY BY: N/A

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

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.