Italy Nine - Text
33 year old male, born 1975, Caucasian, actor, undergraduate degree.
This male subject was born in Treviso, Italy and studied four years in Bologna, Italy. He also lived a few years in Reggio Emilia, Italy, which is approximately 80 km north of Bologna.
Running time: 05:06
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
I’m from Italy. I was born in Treviso. That is close to Venice and…um...and I…I make the…the university in Bologna. My, my degree is, is, in literature with a specialization in theatre and um…and my job is theatre in as many aspects that, that I can try to reach and…uh…I can speak for whatever I want? ah. (inhales cigarette) Now I am in Latvia (exhales smoke) for international festival and uh…of theatre and it’s uh…a very good experience. I am meeting a lot of uh, interesting people and uh…one is in front of me, but you can’t see that because it’s just (laughs) how you’re recording (laughs) and uh…here the sun never goes down. You know. It’s, uh…very funny. It’s uh, at midnight there is still light, uh. Well, not in midnight, but that’s ok. If you don’t come here you don’t see, you don’t know so I can lie as I want. So I will tell you there is always the sunshine and there are parrots going around and there are a lot of people always dancing and flying everywhere and you can fly too.
The subject has an excellent grasp of English, which he began studying in secondary school. While not residing outside of Italy for any sizable length of time, his English language skills have, no doubt, been strengthened by touring the world as a performer. Initially halting due to, perhaps, nerves, his tone remains animated and cigarette smoking can be heard on two occasions. Some “uh” sounds present in the recording, may be extensions of an intrusive schwa sound. Some attributes of his accent include: dentalizing of alveolar consonants (“territory” and “dog”), substitution of long e for I in the medial position (“animal” and “sentimental”), presentation of ery/ary endings as “air-y” (“unsanitary”), and the shifting of unvoiced h to voiced h (“huge”).