Italy 23

Listen to Italy 23, a 26-year-old woman from Brindisi, Italy. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 26

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 26/06/1990

PLACE OF BIRTH: Brindisi, Italy

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Italian/white

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: bachelor’s degree

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

The speaker has never lived outside Italy. Raised in Brindisi, she has lived for six years in Turin (or Torino).

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

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

RECORDED BY: Marco Sciascia

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 02/04/2017

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 Brindisi, a town located in the southeast area of Italy. I have a two wonderful parents and a wonderful big brother that I look up to. I’ve lived in Torino for six years; I went to college there, where I majored in psychology. Torino is a much different city than Brindisi, but even so, I fell in love with it right away. I have a very profound relationship with my hometown and with the sea, which to me it’s an oasis of pleasure and tranquillity.

[Subject then speaks virtually the same content in Italian]: Sono nata a brindisi, una città nel sud Italia in Puglia. Ho due genitori ed un fratello più grande che ammiro molto. Ho studiato psicologia all’università di Torino dove vivo da sei anni. Anche se molto diversa da Brindisi, Torino è una città che offre molto, di cui mi sono innamorata subito. Continuo comunque ad essere molto legata alla mia città d’origine e al mare che per me è un oasi di piacere e tranquillità.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Marco Sciascia

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 02/04/2017

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

[English speech only]: aɪ̝̆ woz borɳ iɳ ˈbriɳ.d̪i.si ɐ t̪aʊ̝̆ɳ ˈlo.keɪ̝̆.t̪ɪd̪ iɳ d̪ɐ saʊ̝̆f ist̪ ˈɐ.ɹɐ ov ˈi.t̪ɐ.li / aɪ̝̆ ɛv t̪u ˈwɐɳ.d̪er.ful ˈpɑ̘.reɳts ɛɳd̪ ɐ ˈwɐɳ.d̪er.ful big ˈbrɐ.deɹ d̪et̪ aɪ̝̆ luk ɐp t̪u aɪ̝̆v livd̪ iɳ t̪o.ˈri.ɳo fɔɚ siks ˈi.ɚs aɪ̝̆ wɛɳ.ˈt̪u ˈko.led͡ʒ d̪ɛɹ weɹ aɪ̝̆ me.ˈʝoɹd̪ iɳ psi.ˈko.lo.d͡ʒi / t̪o.ˈri.ɳo iz mɐt͡ʃ ˈdi.fe.ɹɛɳt̪ ˈsi.t̪i d̪ɛɳ ˈbriɳ.d̪i.si bɐt̪ ˈi.veɳ soː aɪ̝̆ fɛl iɳ lov wid̪͜ it̪ raɪ̝̆t̪ ɐ.ˈwei aɪ̝̆.ˈʝɛv ɐ ˈvɛ.ɹi pɹo.ˈfaŭːɳd̪ ɹeˈle.ʃən.ʃip wid̪ˤ maĭ oʊ̆ɳ ˈt̪aˑ.uɳ ɛɳd̪ wid̪͜ d̪e si wit͡ʃ t̪u mi its ɐɳ͜ o.ˈezis ov ˈplɛ.ʒoˑɹ eɳ t̪rɐɳˈkwi.li.tʰi

TRANSCRIBED BY: Marco Sciascia

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 02/04/2017

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The speaker in this recording has no background in phonetics whatsoever. Because of that, she has preserved her real and authentic Italian accent. In my experience, people who are trying to learn an Italian accent usually tend to go by the stereotype, which entails big gestures and overly musical stress patterns. The reason that happens is the Italian language is much more colorful and various in musicality than most languages. To a native speaker of English (a much more monotonous language), the Italian language could almost sound “sung.” There is some degree of truth in that, as I would personally suggest and recommend a person who is trying to acquire an Italian accent listen closely to the way Italians hang on to words and stress  words differently, especially in the adjective+noun combination, as well as compound nouns.

This speaker is authentically showing in her speech all the featuring modifications discussed above and more. Also, in her attempt to sound more proper, she is sometimes over-enunciating certain sounds, specifically the ones that are not to be found in Italian( the “h” sound, for example). Other important sound changes to pay attention to in this recording are the dentalized T’s and D’s, and the absence of the “th” sound, both voiced and unvoiced. (It is dentalized or sometimes turned into a “t” or a “d” sound). Many other changes occur such as the vowel sound “u” (as in “moon”) in place of the sound “ʊ” (as in “could”).

The diphthong “oʊ̆” always loses its second element, becoming a pure “o” sound. What it is very important to understand is that an Italian speaker may change the sounds in two different ways depending on whether the word is being heard but not spelled or if the word is being spelled but not heard. Italian native speakers are used to reading exactly what they see with no exceptions. That concept does not apply in the English language, in which the spelling of words is very rarely a reliable source to sound it out properly. An example for this would be the word “would.” The “l” that appears in the word is absent in its actual pronunciation, being silent. But the speaker reading this passage pronounces the word, adding the “l” sound as she would ALWAYS and with no exception pronounce “l” if she saw the letter “l” in an Italian word. She also mistakenly pronounces the “w” in “would” as “v.” If she had heard the word “would” but not seen its spelling, she would have not pronounced the “l” or the “v.” In IPA, this is what it would look like in the first instance: “vuld̪.” And this is how it would appear in the second instance: “wud̪.”

COMMENTARY BY: Marco Sciascia

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 02/04/2017

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