New Zealand 22

Listen to New Zealand 22, a 47-year-old man from the South Island of New Zealand, predominantly Christchurch. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 47

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 20/09/1977

PLACE OF BIRTH: Milton, New Zealand

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: New Zealand European/Pākehā

OCCUPATION: professor

EDUCATION: Ph.D

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

From birth to age two, the subject lived in Milton, Otago, New Zealand. At age two, he moved to Westport, also on the South Island of New Zealand. At age 10, he moved to Christchurch, where he lived until age 21. He lived in London, UK, from ages 21 to 24, and then in Japan from ages 24 to 26. He was back in Christchurch from ages 27 to 28, and in Auckland from ages 28 to 30. He then moved to Southern California, in the United States, where he had been living for 18 years at the time of this recording except for time spent in Christchurch for graduate school.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject was back in Christchurch from 2021 to 2024 to attend graduate school; he then returned to Southern California.

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

RECORDED BY: David Nevell

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 13/08/2025

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 I lived my entire life, um, in New Zealand up to the age of 21 in the South Island. So I was born in a small town called Milton, which is in the lower South Island in Otago. Um, I have no memory of Milton. My family lived there because that’s where my dad was teaching at the time. My dad’s a teacher.

Um, my first memory of growing up is in Westport. Westport is a small town on the west coast of the South Island, right on the coast. Um, my family lived in Westport until I was 10. …

Language-wise, I think, the, again, there’s just going to be certain words that, that, um, people, people use, and certain pronunciations of words. I think I, I noticed the other day when my daughter was ordering food at a restaurant that she still says tomato. [Subject laughs.] Um, so it’d kind of minor things like that. And I’m sure if you asked them as well, there’d be sort of some differences in the school systems. I know my son notices a lot more homework here [Southern California], for example. Um, but there’s also, I think there’s probably more similar — I think culturally, you know, things are relatively similar, so they didn’t have too much difficulty, um, kind of going back and forth between, between the two places. …

They were both born here, like here, in California. I think it, it probably did change slightly when they were there, but nowhere near as much as I thought; I thought their accents would disappear because based on the — this is not my area — but based on my rudimentary understanding, I think when kids move when they’re still kids, when they were six and nine, when they moved down there, um, it’s pretty common for them to lose their accent, and why that didn’t happen, I’m not sure. Um, I think it did happen to some, some extent, and it certainly happened with some of their, some of their word choice. Um, but they’ve probably for the most part switched back. Um, although having said that, it is hard sometimes to notice. So people (our friends here) did notice when we first moved back, uh, that the kids sounded slightly Kiwi in some of their some of their, some of their in their accent, which is not something that I really noticed. To me, they still sounded basically the same.

TRANSCRIBED BY: David Nevell

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 14/08/2025

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

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