Italy 4

Listen to Italy 4, a 28-year-old woman from Possagno, Italy. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 28

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1972

PLACE OF BIRTH: Possagno, Italy (near Venice)

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Italian

OCCUPATION: graduate teaching assistant in Italian

EDUCATION: university degree

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

The subject was at the University of Kansas, in the United States, at the time of the recording, as a graduate teaching assistant.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

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

RECORDED BY: Yuji Tsuboi and Paul Meier

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 03/03/2000

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 1972, so I’m 20 years old. So we are clear. Haha. I’m from Italy, and I was born near Venice, and I live also near Venice right now. And, ah, what about my family? So I have sister. She is older than me, and we live all together in the Possagno. Possagno is the name of my place. It’s, ah, ama an hour and a half for far from Venice, and it’s very small because it’s just eight-hundred inhabitants. So it’s very different from here. Lawrence is not big, but it’s bigger than Possagno. Ahaha, so I studied foreign languages at the high school, and I have a university degree in political science with a, eh, emphasis on an international trade. And I took it at the university of Padua. And now I’m here to get a master in the business communication. So I just started this experience because this is my second semester. This is my first semester as a graduate student, and also I’m here. I’m working here. I’m an Italian GTA. I’m teaching Italian to undergraduate students, and now I’m teaching the elementary level of Italian. And so, I teach to people who don’t know nothing anything about Italian. And so, this is a very interesting experience, but I think that everything here is, ah, very interesting. The everything is new. It’s a completely new experience for me because when I was at the university, I used to live in an apartment and not in my place. So I stay away for the week, but then in the weekend, I had an opportunity to came back. But here, just after four or five month I can go home, and so I have to organize my whole life here. And this means study, work, but also live. And also means do everything in the house cleaning, laundry. And this is very, ah … to organize everything. It’s a little bit difficult especially at the beginning. Now I’m get used, ah, everything that it’s a, it’s much more comfortable for me and so I think it’s very good. Then I’m happy to be here because this is, this was my dream. Since I was in the high school, I wanted to go or to come here in the States or to study or to work. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted, but, ah, for me, States are something: our dream. And so, I’m realizing my dream, and, so, now I’m studying, then probably who will see what happen in the future? I don’t know. [Subject recites a prayer in Italian.] This is a prayer, a Christian prayer.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Yuji Tsuboi (under the supervision of Paul Meier)

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:

Subject has a strong Italian accent. Notice the elided “h,” and the use of the classic intrusive schwa. Also note that the subject says she was born in 1972 and gives her age as 20. However, by virtue of the fact this recording dates from 2000, she would have been 28 at the time. Therefore, she likely meant she was in her 20s.

If you are a dialect researcher, or an actor using this sample to develop your skill in the accent, please see my instruction manual at www.paulmeier.com. As the speaker in this sample is a unique individual, it is highly unlikely that she will conform to my analysis in every detail. But you will find it interesting and instructive to notice which of my “signature sounds” and “additional features” (always suggested only as commonly heard features of the accent) are widely used by most speakers of the accent, and which are subject to variation from individual to individual.

COMMENTARY BY: Paul Meier

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 03/03/2000 (amended 13/11/2016)

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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