Venezuela Three - Text
The speaker is female, born 1976 Caracas, Venezuela. She has lived in the United States for about ten years, which is around the same time she began learning English. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in advertising and marketing as well as a degree in the arts. When living in Venezuela she used to work as part of an executive media for a large company. She specifically worked for three different accounts—Xerox, Marlboro, and Coca Cola. She currently works as a florist in Southern California.
Ryan Johnson interviewed the speaker on November 15, 2008. The final running time of the recording is 00:06:54.
The subject talks about where her parents were born as well as where she was born and grew up. She talks about her job in Venezuela and her reasons for moving to the United States.
Orthographic Transcription
I was born in Caracas, Venezuela. My dad is from Argentina. My mom is from Venezuela. They met in the coast. Coast is called La Guaira. And they get married and then ta-da me, which is um…after like three years been married. Uh, they got, they have me and then move…my father, when he moved to Venezuela, he’s a miner. So we move some place called Las Minas. That place is between Brazil and Venezuela, in the border and I lived there for between five and six years—something like that—and that’s called the jungle. And it was a really good childhood, I really like it. It’s the natural and you know, rivers, and be free like a bird. So it was really nice. After that, of course I have to move to the capital, back again, because I need an education. And the jungle, you don’t have education. You will be there, just be a wife of a miner, and have a lot of kids and do nothing. That’s what will be kind of job for you. My mother want that for me. So, I, we went to the capital and then I got my education who, I have two degrees—one in arts and theatre and it’s called um…I don’t know where’s uh they called the big theatre, we’ll tell you later. And then I have a degree in advertising and marketing which is is a university of Simon Rodriguez. And I work for big company in Venezuela and I work as um…um executive media. And I work for three accounts—Xerox, you know they sells, um Marlboro, the cigarettes, and Coca Cola. So I make you know, I did the media. What is the media department? Do their um everything on the newspaper, everything on the commercials, movie, everything, you know all the advertising that they needed. So that was my job at there. But what is the point I came to the United States? I meet a lot of English in there. Was people calling from Chicago is the, is the um… the main of this company, this um advertising and marketing company. So they were calling and coming to Venezuela and talking all the way in English, basic Spanish so I was like, “No, I really need it, a little more.” And all the, the tools that you use on computer media department is all in English. I knew the tools, like how to use it and I understand it, but I couldn’t speak it. So I said I need to go to United States, and one of my, my mom’s sister, she’s a citizen here and she lives in California, and she asked me twice to come here, but my mom was scared of the open mind and different cultures or whatever, whatever. So she went there when I was ten and my mom said no. Then she went back when I was fifteen, my mom said no. And then finally I’m twenty-one almost twenty-two and yeah I can decide on my own. So I can do, learn the language, to learn the English—still learning, as you can s… as you can tell. And um, and then I get married. And then uh I became a citizen and ba-da-ba-da, I, me stay here. That’s it and I make a new life. Thank you. Bye-bye.
Characteristics
- Frontal Placement
- Volume and pitch variation are used for emphasis.
- Rapid speech—new thoughts are more important than the old ones.
- Mouth
- When reading, uncommon words are guessed and usually mispronounced by adding or dropping a sound, or changing the emphasis between syllables.
- Common to hear the devoicing or dropping of final consonant sounds, especially words with final t’s, d’s and s’.
- Words that begin with “s” followed by another consonant are pronounced with a preceding [ ɛ ] sound.
- Sound changes are inconsistent.
Sound Substitutions
- [ z ] à [ s ] only when the actual letter in the word is an “s,” not a “z”
was, disease, surprising, Mrs., is, chasm
- [ ɪ ] à [ i ] district, this, it, expensive, capital
- [ θ, ð ] à [ t, d ] this, that, either, thought, mouth
- [ t, d ] à [ ɛd ] only for words that end in –ed
washed, warned, remembered, passed, shipped
- [ v ] à [ b ] at the beginning of words
vet, venison, veterinary, vast, victory
- [ ks ] à [ s ] rarely occurs
expensive, exit, executive
- [ dʒ ] and [ j ] for the letters “j” and “y” can be, but may not be interchangeable
jacket, judge, lawyer, yes, job, Anyelid