Sichuan 5

Listen to Sichuan 5, a 17-year-old woman from Zigong, Sichuan Province, China. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 17

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 31/01/1999

PLACE OF BIRTH: Zigong, Sichuan Province

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Han Chinese

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION:

Subject was in her first year of undergraduate studies in college when recorded.

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

At the time of this recording, she had been living in the United States for two and a half years. (She lived in Humboldt, California, for two years as as a high school exchange student before beginning college, and then the last six months in Ashland, Oregon.)

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: none

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

RECORDED BY: Kris Danford

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 09/12/2016

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 Zigong. Ah, it’s a city in Sichuan Province. And I played the piano when I was 5 years old ’cause my parents insist me to play it ’cause they think I would like it. They told me I asked them to buy me a piano when I was 5 after I — the school — I from — after I finished school from kindergarten. So they got me a piano; then I started to learning it.

And my dad is a police. My mom is a offic- officer in a department of Chinese resources. And then when I get into high school, I started learning, um, the different cultures. Then I got interested in a, a — be an exchange student to come to America. So I decided to come here and study here in two years in California: Humboldt. And, uh, this is my third year. I went back to China for um, uh, two times now during summer and had fun with family. And then now coming back for, uh, college. And I’m studying in music: piano major. And also I’m studying, uh, gonna start business major next term, and I hope it’s gonna be fun for me to stay here and enjoying this culture here.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Kris Danford

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 25/01/2017

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

• The vowel in the “kit” lexical set tends to change to [i]: “kit, itchy, unsanitary, de.” Further, I observe the vowel in the word “treatment” changes to [I] as in “kit.” This does not seem to be a consistent truth but perhaps a “reverse error” in relation to the sound shift noted above.
• The speaker is quite proficient some of the time with many consonants requiring retroflex of the tongue tip. [l, t, d, n] are often produced very clearly. This is, however, inconsistent, and at times those same consonants become unclear or are not fully formed. The position of the consonant within a word does not seem to be a determining factor in this point. Take, for example, the consonants in the following words: learning, even (final consonant is unclear/not fully formed), required, and treat.
• The vowel in “foot” tends to shift to [u].
• In the word “played” [eɪ], the vowel shifts to [aɪ].
• [θ] does not consistently change in this speaker, but one will occasionally hear the consonant change to [s] as in “with.”
• Bright [l] is executed clearly for the most part, but note that in instances where a dark [l] is used, there is not actual contact between the tongue tip and the alveolar ridge. For example, the words: “able, hold, old, told.”
• In the word “millionaire,” the [lj] combination is replaced with [nj].

COMMENTARY BY: Kris Danford

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 25/01/2017

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.