Saskatchewan Two - Text
Subject is a white male, born in 1964. He is the son of subject #1. Born and raised in Wolseley, Saskatchewan, Canada he has a high school education with a year of university in Ontario, Canada. He is married and the father of three young children. He is the General Manager of a Manufacturing and Retail Business. Recorded and edited on May 7, 2000 by Susan Stackhouse.
This subject is soft spoken, with the low pitch and narrow range that is characteristic of this area. There is also a lack of breath support. Of interest is the pronunciation of the word garage (as in cat as opposed to cot) and the 'typically Canadian' use of are for our. Some [g]'s from ing endings are dropped as in 'goin on' and the word new is pronounced [nju] and not [nu]. There is slight evidence of Canadian Raising (mid central starting point when the following consonant is voiceless) in the words, high and white light, however, the vowel of house is more open. J.C. Wells in his book, Accents of English 3, reports that "it is supposed to be possible to identify speakers from western Canada by their pronunciation of slough (large body of residual water) as [slu] as against the form [slau] used by those from central and eastern Canada." It is of interest to note that both this speaker (#2) and speaker # 1 used this pronunciation when interviewed, however it could not be included in this edited recording.
Further editing 9.23.00 by Paul Meier. Running time: 00:02:53.
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
(Um) The house, yes. Where do we start? It was a two-story brick house that (uh) an older couple had lived in their entire life and we moved in and wanted to make a few changes, to say the least. (Uh) We gutted out the entire main floor. New walls, new (uh) crown moldings, (uh) besides all the paint and wallpaper, and et cetera. And (uh) we’re still working on it, but one bedroom to go, I think, is—and then we’ll start all over again, but. We have a nice old barn in our back yard there, as you can see (unclear). (Laughs) That the wife wants to tear down, but we have nothing to replace it with, so until the garage gets built, it’s staying. And (uh)—and a big yard for the kids to play in, so that’s one of the big pluses of the thing, but we haven’t done too much work in the yard yet. No time, no money. Oh, my goodness. (Laughs) I still have friends in Toronto, so—(uh) from my university days. But (uh) our lives are quite different. (Uh) Theirs seem very preoccupied with their jobs and careers. And—and I know it seems like we are but—but we got a—seems to me we have a whole other life going on, where they are very—they seem to be very structured in their—because, maybe, of where they live and how they have to get to work and things like that. But they seem to have to be, like you say, up at five-thirty. You’re there at this time, at the daycare at this time, where we have a more relaxed, I think, lifestyle that way where—maybe that’s our own situation but (uh) a little bit more relaxed and down to earth.
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY JOHN WRIGHT 15 MAY, 2008