England 64

Listen to England 64, a 20-year-old woman from Bury, Manchester, who was raised mostly in Germany by English parents. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 20

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1987

PLACE OF BIRTH: Bury, Manchester

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: white

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: N/A

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

The subject lived in Bury until age 5, and then moved to Hamburg, Germany.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

the subject attended German kindergarten for one year and then attended an international school until age 18 before studying drama and English at Cambridge University in England for the two years prior to this recording. Both her parents are originally from the Manchester area, and the subject describes her mother’s dialect as strong northern England.

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

RECORDED BY: Subject

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

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 Manchester in 1987, and both my parents come from that part of the country. And so I was there until the age of 5, at which point I moved to Hamburg, Germany, and I attended an international school there, so that’s probably why my accent sounds a bit mixed up. Over the years it changed a lot; it went from being quite English, like northern English, to quite American when my friend circle consisted mostly of Americans, and then back again when my friend circle changed again. My friends were from all over the place; I had friends from Palestine, from America, from — quite a few from England — and many from Germany obviously, and I think we probably brushed off quite a lot on each other. When I first moved to England and my accent was quite a bit stronger and a lot of people were quite confused as to why I should have such a strong accent especially when a lot of my teachers at school came from England, but I think its quite usual for international schools to kind of morph into this international accent, which is quite influenced by American possibly due to influence from the media. So it was quite interesting to see their reaction to how I spoke at the time. To me it sounds quite neutral in that it’s quite a mix of things and I can’t quite place where it’s from, and certain words do sound like they come from up north, whereas others sound influenced by obviously American speech, and then others again my accent’s becoming more southern the longer I live down south, which is where I am at the moment. So, yeah, I do get some quite confused reactions when I talk to people.

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

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).

 

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