South Dakota 1

Listen to South Dakota 1, a 22-year-old woman from Vermillion, South Dakota, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 22

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1986

PLACE OF BIRTH: Houston, Texas (but raised in South Dakota)

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Native American (Seneca-Iroquois)

OCCUPATION: college student

EDUCATION: The subject was a college senior at the time of this interview.

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

The subject lived in Houston, Texas, until the age of 6, when she moved to Vermillion, South Dakota.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

Although a member of the Seneca Iroquois tribe, she has been informally adopted by the Lakota Sioux in South Dakota.

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

RECORDED BY: Priscilla Hagen

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 29/02/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Well, uh, I was raised in Vermillion, South Dakota. It’s, uh, a small college town, uh, just in the corner of the state. Um, I’ve lived here since I was 6 years old. Um, my mom worked as a professor at the Psychology Department at the University. My parents, my mom and my dad: um, they got divorced when I was 12. Uh, my mom has remarried; my dad has a fiancé, so I have one biological brother and many step siblings. I don’t know [chuckle] if I know how many. Um, I have a lot of extended family, most of which lives in Texas near Houston. Uh, I have an uncle and his family that lives in Delaware, and my mother was adopted, so her real family lives in New York. Uh, we don’t know them, heh, but we have found out who they are so, uh, someday we’d like to get to know who they are. I’m Seneca Iroquois native; uh, that’s from New York, but I grew up most of my life in Vermillion, South Dakota, so we’ve pretty much been adopted by the Lakota people here. Um, so I grew up traditional Lakota. Um, my culture is very important to me. It’s a different tribe than mine, but I’ve never really known mine since I never grew up there but, um, I’ve been very much accepted by the people here and think of them as my family since a lot of my extended family are not here. So, I practice traditional Lakota beliefs and culture and ceremony, and it’s very near to my heart. I guess my favorite tradition would be the Sundance Ceremony, uh, that’s in the end of the summer. Um, it’s actually a very difficult, uh, ceremony. You have to prepare for it all year long, and it lasts about a week. But it’s something that, um, if you’re a Sundancer, which I am, it’s something that you live your whole life, so it’s all year round. But during that week of Sundance, the whole community gets together and we all camp out together and, uh, cook for each other and take care of each other, and it’s really special to me: the cohesion that we have during that time. And we’re all working hard together and supporting each other, so that’s a very special time to me even though it’s hot and it’s hard and difficult. Um, it’s very special to me to have that close connection with my community.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Priscilla Hagen

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 29/02/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The subject was very soft spoken. The jaw was held tight, with very little lip rounding or forward movement of the lips.

COMMENTARY BY: Priscilla Hagen

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 29/02/2008

The archive provides:

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• 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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