Arkansas Five - Text
The subject is 23 year-old male, born in Little Rock, Arkansas and raised and educated in various Arkansas towns. He is a student at the University Of Arkansas/Fayetteville. His speech has a very narrow pitch range and is strongly rhotic. His long "i" vowel as in "liking" and "wiped" always receive an "ah" substitution. When reading, his "ing" endings are fully velar in "working" and "liking" etc., but alveolar when in conversation. Final consonants in words like "confirmed" are sometimes elided; and some medial consonants in "twenty-one", "mirror", and "nearer" are also elided. There is consistent consonant cluster reduction on such words as "never", "remember" and "veterinarian". The vowel in "them" is slightly diphthongized.
Recorded by Mavourneen Dwyer, 9.12.01, and edited by Paul Meier. Running time: 00:04:11.
TRANSCRIPTION
I was born in Little Rock, Arkansas (at) Doctors’ Hospital. I remember when I was two or three years old, (um) I had to take a nap, as I did every day. And I’d go to bed -- with my sister, we both slept in the same room. And before that I’d pulled a wagon up to my window. And our-- my mother put us to bed. I opened the window and crawled out into the wagon and went playin’. I was playin’ for two or three hours before my mother finally figured out that I was outside. And she ran out to git me, I ran and hid in the cotton field. And my hair was bleach-blond, and they couldn’t find me. I stood out there, an’ I could see them but they couldn’t see me. But then my mother told me there was a big snake out in the cotton field so I came runnin’ out of the cotton field and she caught me.
I remember another incident. I’d always climb trees when I was a little kid, just like three, four, five years old. And I climbed an oak tree, I believe it was, way up to the top. My mother was seven months’ pregnant with my brother, and (uh) she said that was the last time she was comin’ to git me. ‘’Cause, like, the day before that she climbed up the tree to git me and she fell out, and hurt herself. And it was probably three o’clock in the afternoon, when she found me up in the tree, and my dad didn’t get off till about seven. So she told me I had to stay in the tree the whole time. And I started to fall asleep, and she couldn’t climb up the tree; she had to stay out there with me. And she used a fishin’ pole, she’d hit the branches with it and try an’ keep me awake. And (uh) when my dad got home – whew! I’ll never forget that day.
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY JACQUELINE BAKER, ASSOCIATE EDITOR FOR TRANSCRIPTIONS, October 1, 2007