Saskatchewan Three - Text
Subject is a white male born in 1955. Born in Wolseley, Saskatchewan, Canada and raised in Regina, Saskatchewan. He has a high school education and has lived in Saskatchewan all his life. Half of his work life is spent as an Information Technologist and the other half as a Post Secondary Trainer. He is married and the father of two grown children. He is the husband of Saskatchewan subject #5 and the father of subject #4. Recorded and edited on May 7, 2000 by Susan Stackhouse.
TRANSCRIPTION
I’m 44 years old. Live in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. I, ah, I’m a father of two grown children; one of whom got married just the other day. Um, my wife and I are great friends. We love to spend time together. We love to…especially take part in church activities together. Ministering to people, and, and worshipping. I work, ah, with the church as a director of a training school. As well—that s half time—the other half of my, my time, my work life, is spent with the Provincial Government, ah, in the mapping department. So I spend half my time with people, half my time with computers and, and engineering type activities. So it’s a nice balance for me.
[Talking about his son’s wedding] Oh that was a, an am…an amazing day for our whole family, but for me in particular. I had the opportunity, which I never would have dreamed I would have, of actually officiating the wedding ceremony and performing the wedding of my son and my new daughter-in-law. And it was a very emotional time, a very, um, just a very rich time of, um, building memories for our family and, and we’re looking forward now to how that’s all going to fit together and, and develop as we, as we, um, enter this new phase of our, of our lives together as a family.
[Talking about language specific to the area he lives in] Well…things…aw that’s specific to this area? I’m not sure. We say the Canadian “aye” a lot. (laughs) We, ah, we say “anti”, not “aunty”, which is, I think even in Canada some parts say “aunty”. Um, not far from us in the States they say “ruff” where we say “roof”. We say, um, well maybe I’m just naïve but it seems to me that, that the Canadian accent and mid-western Canada is kind of a generic type of an English accent that seems to go well. Even the States will recruit our, our people to read the news because it’s kind of a generic type accent.
Transcribed by Mitchell Kelly, January 15, 2008
This sample could arguably be considered a 'typical' Canadian sound. J.C. Wells in his book Accents of English 3, says "From Ottawa to Vancouver is more than 3000 kilometres; their accents are virtually the same." This sound is closer to General American than that of Eastern Canada and this notion is addressed by the speaker when he mentions that the midwestern states recruit newscasters from Saskatchewan. Many Canadians mispronounce the word Saskatchewan. This speaker gives us a great example of how it is pronounced by those who are born and raised in the province - [Saskatchwen] - with a schwa in the first and final syllables. Other Canadians often pronounce it [Sas/kat/chew/on] - no schwa. There is slight evidence of Canadian Raising (mid central starting point when the following consonant is voiceless) with the words white light and high. The word our is pronounced are and the word sure is pronounced sher (as in Shirley) in 'typical' Canadian fashion. Please note that this subject is speaking with muscular tension in a lowered larynx, and has a narrow pitch range as is the case with most samples from Saskatchewan. Also note the rising intonation.
Further editing 9.23.00 by Paul Meier. Running time: 00:03:36.