Kentucky Five - Text
The speaker is a Caucasian female in her early 40's, born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. She has had a year or two of college education and comes from a working class background. Except for a two year stay in Taylorsville, Kentucky (about 50 miles Southwest of Louisville), she has lived in Louisville all of her life. Like many female working class speakers, her vocal range is much lower than people from the country, or from the mountains. Also typical of this area, she speaks with a strong nasal resonance, uses a strong, hard terminal and medial "r" and substitutes "a" for "aI" when the vowel is terminal, or followed by a phonated consonant. The recording was made by Rinda Frye on February 16, 2000 and edited by Paul Meier on February 29. Running time 00:03:16.
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
I grew up in south Louisville, uh, I lived there up until the time—well-where I grew up I lived up until the time I was twenty. Uh, it was working class neighborhood. When I was growing up, um, there were, most of the mothers were stay at home mothers. So you knew, all the, they all knew each other, I knew all the kids growing up, it, you know, it, it was blue collar. You know, so, you know they’re not like a big, you know, bunch of executives or anybody around, it wasn’t like that. Um, I think uh, the dialect in south Louisville differs, uh, from other parts of the east end because most, I think of, of the south end is a family community, whereas a lot of the people that live in other parts of the city, I think, you know, come from other places, and, like, they’re more professionals, and um, I, I think the south end is, I think most of the people that live in the south end have been there a long time, they’re family has been there, whereas, you know, people that come from other places are just not usually going to gravitate towards the south end. Um. Uh, there were a lot of Catholic families on our street, I know I was jealous growing up, all the girls would have first communion and I, I didn’t have first communion because I went to the Methodist church down the street. So’s kind of jealous about that. Um, I went to, uh, Iroquois High School, which is on down Taylor Boulevard. Um, where I live now really isn’t that far, um, from it. I grew up very close to Churchill Downs, which, it, a lot of people would think that’s cool but I look as, at d-derby day as a day where you were kind of stuck, you couldn’t go anywhere because of all the traffic. And, huh, my husband growing up um, he always went to the derby and he, he never saw the side of it that I did. I mean, they’d get on the expressway, they’d go in the Downs, they’d park, they had their great box seats right on the rail, would watch the derby and go home, so, I know that when, um, when we first started dating, we’d go over my mother’s house derby eve and we’d watch all the traffic going up and down Taylor Boulevard. And he, it fascinated him, I mean he would sit there with his mouth hanging open because he never saw that part of it. He didn’t know how wild it was, I mean he just couldn’t get over all the people, and, you know, so, you know, he saw a different side of it, you know, than what I saw. A, you know, a lot of people, you know, look down on the south end, but it’s very unfortunate, I mean you can g-get beautiful homes in the south end, I think the cost o’ living is, I m- it-, it’s the same, but you can get a house comparable to a house out on the east end for less money. I’m close to work, I mean it’s, you know, it’s, it’s very handy for me.
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY MARTI LYONS 6 APRIL, 2008, UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF PROFESSOR SANDRA LINDBERG