South Africa 6

Listen to South Africa 6, a woman from Vereeniging, South Africa. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: N/A

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

PLACE OF BIRTH: Vereeniging, close to Johannesburg

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Caucasian South African

OCCUPATION: librarian

EDUCATION:

The subject doesn’t give specifics, but we can assume library studies.

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

This middle-aged subject lived in Richards Bay for about six months, and had been living in Alberton for two years prior to this recording.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

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

RECORDED BY: Yvette Hardie

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 24/05/2000

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 grew up in Vereeniging, um. We moved to Richards Bay for about six months when I was 4 years old and then came back, and I lived my whole life in Vereeniging. And then I moved to Alberton about two years ago. Weekend, it was more going out into the sun [laughs] because South Africa is a land of sun. So go out, go swimming, go hiking, just do anything as long as you’re outside. So, that’s about it. My parents also lived their whole lives in the Vaal Triangle, that is van der Biyl park, they lived there, and then they moved to Vereeniging when they were married and they live still there, still living there. I’ve been married, I’m divorced at the moment. So I’m single with my two black cats [laughs]. I’m very happy. I started, um.studying at Potchefstroom University and after I studied there I started working at Vereeniging Public Library for seven and a half years and after that I studied further. I did my psychology honors and after that I did a little bit of, um, psychiatric testing, um, personality testing, that kind of stuff. then at Athlone I worked for about a year and a half, and then I came to the school. do librarian work as well. I feel very important [laughs]. A lot of people came here and, um, because I love the work and I’m very interested in information, any kind of information, um, I think they feel that I like my work and they feel relaxed when they come in, they, they can ask me anything. I’d like at the end…to do evaluation at the school as well. Not only to sit in library everyday for my whole life. I think I’d rather do that. Even if it’s part-time and I have to work in library because I like librarian work. It’s fun for me, but I’d like to do … to do something else as well; as a part time job.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Dianne-Yvette Cook

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 03/2005

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

She at times uses Afrikaans grammatical constructions when speaking English (“lived still there”), and the use of upward inflections is typical. Notice the tendency of final “t”s to become “d” in connected speech (“pot of gold”), and also the coloring of the “I” sound in “sky” and the “ay” in “explanation.” There is also a slight tendency to replace a “th” with a “f” in a phrase such as “something else.”

COMMENTARY BY: Yvette Hardie

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 24/05/2000

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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