Sri Lanka One - Text
Subject is a male college student, born and raised in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He has been bi-lingual all his life, speaking both Sinhalese and English since a child. His parents are also bi-lingual. At the time of the interview, he had lived in the United States for two years. Subject has a slight accent with strong British influence (e.g. the lexical set "bath" and words like futile.) The interview was recorded by Julia Guichard in Oxford, Ohio, USA, in April, 2005. Running time 00:04:32.
Transcription of Unscripted Speech
Well, I'm from Sri Lanka, and I grew up there for 20 years of my life..and I still have my grandma and my brother, who live there, but that's pretty much the only family I have left back home. Um, I have an aunt who lives here...um...well, that's pretty much it, all I guess *laughs* I live near the beach, which is really nice, so, I mean, every evening we go to the beach and jog..stuff like that, and all my friends live really close by, so it is really nice. Well, see, uh, I live really close to my school, and if you'd like to, jumped over the wall, it's a beach *laughs* so, yeah. Uh, the ocean is really nice um, it's not....like..the pictures you see of the waters and stuff where it's in Hawaii where it's like crystal-blue..it--it was darker, and..it was really safe there because it is like a little cove, so you could just wade it, and it was really, really nice. Well I'm currently finance major, but I definitely do want to go into banking, and hopefully own a bank *laughs* so, we'll see how that goes uh, but if not--well right now I think it'll be on hold for a while because...it's really hard to establish a bank..so, it's easier to make more money uh, with other businesses than trying to get into banking--But I'll probably work in a bank to see how they work, and how they operate and stuff like that. I think the financial sector is obviously more developed, so I have a lot learn and take back home, so I think I would like to work here for a while--but I'm definitely going back, I really like this town, the people are really nice, especially the older folk...cause..I really feel at home here..um. There was this professor who was looking for--well, not really but there was a play the professor was directing, and there was a Sri Lankan part in it, and that I should try out for it, but after I did I found out that it was a female role *laughs* so, I didn't get that, but..that's pretty much how--but I had no plans of getting involved with theater once I came in, and I-I actually wanted to keep away, because I did take part in plays back home, and I really messed up my studies so...yeah. And I made the same mistake again because *laughs* I messed up this semester.
Unscripted Speech Transcribed by Faith Harvey 01 March 2008