English 432/433
Sampling Language
This essay will involve research on a second short passage of spoken language from the modern era. You will need to provide a close analysis of the sound and dialect features in your selected passage; if there are pronunciations which suggest to you that the speaker is using a certain regional or ethnic accent, you should listen to these words and phrases closely. Idiomatic phrases, catch phrases, and other unusual locutions may also be of help; consult the Dictionary of American Regional English if available. Try to transcribe the signifcant phonological variations which you hear in the passage, and use these transcriptions as evidence. What would you assume to be the social background, class, and level of education of the speaker? Why? What would you say would be the target audience of the speaker? Try to account as fully as you can for the social context of the utterance, but resist the urge to do detailed biographical research -- or at least put it off until you have figured out all you can from the sample alone.
Papers should be 3-4 pages in length.
You may locate your own source using homemade recordings, found sounds, or the lyrics of hip-hop or spoken word recordings. I have also provided eighteen on-line samples, any of which may be used as your selection:
C.Online Sound Samples
1. Eleanor Roosevelt -- "Over Coffee Cups" (1941)
2. Uncle Josh's Letter Home -- Cal Stewart (1909)
4. Edwin Booth reads from Othello in 1890!
5. American Memory Project - Sound Recordings (with spoken word)
6. Vaudeville Stage, 1913-1922: sound recordings from the Library of Congress
7. Sylvia Plath reads from "Daddy"
8. Dylan Thomas will not go Gently Into That Good Night
9. Robert Frost chooses the Road Less Taken
10. Poet laureate Rita Dove recites "Parsley"
12. Groucho Marx: These are the Breaks
13. 1950's DJ "Mad Daddy" gives an aircheck
14. The Mighty Casey as an Umprire (1913)
16. William Jennings Bryan (1908)
17. Henry Cabot Lodge on the League of Nations (circa 1920)
18. Listen to the Oldest Surviving Sound Recording in the World, a "talking clock" from 1878!
19. A Dramatic Recording of a scene from "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," from 1905!
NOTE 1: Most of the sounds from Earth Station One have been removed from this list. You
can still go to their site, but the
site's recent redesign makes it impossible
to create a direct link.
NOTE 2: If you are
having difficulty playing these sound files, there are free
shareware programs which will make it
easy!
If you are using a Macintosh, go get SoundApp
If you are using
Windows, go get GoldWave