North Carolina Nineteen - Text
This 29 year old African American female was born, raised and lived exclusively in Greensboro, North Carolina until age 27. She has a BFA in Theatre from North Carolina A & T in Greensboro. She has lived for the past two years in Las Vegas, NV while enrolled in the MFA acting program at UNLV (University of Nevada Las Vegas). Residing in the western US for two years has had minimal impact on her dialect. She has, however, been able to shift rather successfully to GenAm speech or other dialects when necessary. The speaker discusses her affinity for her home state and her commitment to family.
The dialect is rich with southern features including:
1) An occasional reduction/elimination of /r/ coloration particularly in unstressed vowel endings of words such as mother, father and brother.
2) Frequent contraction of /ing/ endings to /in/ (goin', comin', etc.)
3) Modification of final "l" sound in words such as all and call, to a lip-rounded sound where the tongue makes no motion toward the alveolar ridge-sometimes the /l/ is eliminated altogether.
4) Words with the short /e/ sound as in DRESS are often pronounced with the short /i/ as in KIT.
5) Clear reduction of the diphthong in the PRICE set to the single "cardinal 4" vowel.
6) Occasional substitution of /f/ for /th/ in word endings. (Norf Carolina)
7) The word "on" becomes lengthened to "aaawn".
8) /G/ endings as in "strong" are often shifted from /ng/ to a plosive /g/ .
9) Speaker freely uses the colloquial "Y'All".
Subject was recorded by Phil Hubbard on 04/13/06 in Las Vegas NV. Edited by Paul Meier, 4/18/06.
Running time: 00:04:16
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
I’m from Greensboro, North Carolina. Um, one thing that I love about North Carolina is the beautiful scenery: the trees, the cornfields, the tobacco fields, everything about it is just beautiful. Um, they call North Carolina God’s country. And that means when God comes back, he gonna come back and get us firs’, and then he’s gonna come back and get the rest of y’all. (laughs) When I was about, uh, ten years old, I disobeyed my mother an’ I, uh, went outside when I wasn’t supposed to, and I was on top of my friend’s shoulder, and I broke my arm in six different places. And I had emergency surgery that night, but two weeks later when I got home, I still got a wuppin’ (unintelligible). You would’a thought that me breakin’ my arm and havin’ the surgery was enough, but not in my mom’s house (laughs). Um, bein’ out here in Las Vegas, um, by myself, I’m very lonely at times. I talk to my parents every day. I just long to go back home an’ be with them. They came out for two weeks to see me in a show an’ I loved it. It felt so good to know that I was goin’ home and my parents were there. I have a sister and a brother, and I have a new neice, who is the light of my whole family’s life. Um, one day I hope to get married and have kids also. I just enjoy life, an’ I look every day—I look forward every day to doin’ what God has me to do. An’ I’m gonna be an actress, an’ I’m not gonna stop ‘til I’m . . .
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY SANDRA LINDBERG, 1 MAY, 2008.