England Seventy-six - Text
The subject is a 28-year-old black British female, born and raised in Cambridge, and studying at WAC College for the Performing Arts in London.
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
I was born in Cambridge originally, erm and generally you know the accent is fairly upper class, not too upper class, erm, I then moved to London when I was about 21 so it must be about 8 years now since I’ve been in London and it’s mostly the East End of London. I think, you know the main influences, gosh my mother does have quite a strong African accent anyway, erm, and she’s well spoken as well when it comes to her her English, erm, so that probably influences me slightly, I think we all we all just we’re all quite well spoken, I think. You know, erm sometimes when I’m talking to…friends I’m probably less…less well spoken an’ a bit more kind of ‘Lahndahn’ and twangy about things, or a bit lazier in my speech patterns, but when I’m sat down definitely with my f-close members of my family then we’re always, always talking quite clearly and succinctly and like really pronouncing things properly and articulating quite a lot. Erm, I think I- when I first came to London I kid of got the impression that, erm, er yeah that my, my voice didn’t apparently suit what people wanted to… expect for me to talk like, erm, as a sort of young black female, so they were sort of expecting me to be talking like a Londoner, and I wasn’t and I think that I actually took on board quite a lot of different reactions from both black people and white people. Um, I use my voice in my work at the moment ‘cause I sing a lot so like last night we did a gig which means I’m really tired and I’m a bit (sigh) I don’t know probably a bit more gravelly than I normally am, probably a bit more nasally than I normally am, just generally a little bit vocally tired so that’s what I- I use my voice a lot, s- a lot for singing lots of belting and lots of different pitches and stuff like that, but erm…I I quite I quite like my accent but sometimes I listen to myself back and I think, ‘Yeah wow, it’s not really what I kind of thought it was’. But erm that’s that okay, that’s fine, but I it always surprises me a bit I think ‘Wow…’ (laughter)
Interviewed by Marina Tyndall 18th January 2007