Field guide: Participant attributes

On this page
  1. participant
  2. education
  3. ethnicities
  4. gender
  5. neighborhood
  6. neighborhood_childhood
  7. neighborhood_current
  8. occupation
  9. relationships
  10. speech_rate
  11. transcript_duration
  12. type
  13. year_of_birth

participant

APLS speaker code

Display title Export name Filterable Multiple values
Participant participant True False

education

Five-way classification of highest educational attainment

Display title Export name Filterable Multiple values
Education participant_education True False

Option codes and descriptions

Code Description
< HS Did not complete high school
> BA Took or completed graduate coursework
BA Completed a 4-year undergraduate degree of some sort
HS Completed high school. May have attended some college
Student Currently in school at any level

ethnicities

Ethnic/racial self-identification

Display title Export name Filterable Multiple values
Ethnicities participant_ethnicities False True

Option codes and descriptions

Code Description
African American
Amish
Canadian
Croatian
Czech
English
Finnish
French
French Canadian
German
Irish
Italian
Jewish
Lebanese
Lithuanian
other nonspecified Includes non-descriptors like "hybrid", "American", or "none"
Polish
Russian
Scotch-Irish aka Scots-Irish or Ulster Scots
Scottish
Serbian
Slavish (Rusyn) Pronounced /slɑvɪʃ/ (also known as Rusyns or Carpatho-Rusyns)
Slovak
Swiss
Welsh

gender

Gender identity

Display title Export name Filterable Multiple values
Gender participant_gender True False

Option codes

  • Female
  • Male

All speakers in APLS self-identified as either women or men at the time of recording.

neighborhood

Which neighborhood speaker was recruited from (note that Pittsburghers often refer to municipalities near Pittsburgh as “neighborhoods”)

Display title Export name Filterable Multiple values
Neighborhood participant_neighborhood True False

Option codes and descriptions

Code Description
CB Cranberry Township
FH Forest Hills
HD Hill District
LV Lawrenceville

neighborhood_childhood

Childhood neighborhood/municipality (narrow)

Display title Export name Filterable Multiple values
Childhood neighborhood participant_neighborhood_childhood False False

neighborhood_current

Neighborhood/municipality at time of interview (narrow)

Display title Export name Filterable Multiple values
Current neighborhood participant_neighborhood_current False False

occupation

Four-way classification of occupation

Display title Export name Filterable Multiple values
Occupation participant_occupation False False

Option codes

  • Clerical
  • Professional
  • Skilled manual
  • Unskilled manual

relationships

Relationships to other speakers

Display title Export name Filterable Multiple values
Relationships participant_relationships False False

speech_rate

Measurement of syllables per second, skipping over pauses, across all of this speaker’s aligned utterances

Display title Export name Filterable Multiple values
Speech rate (participant) participant_speech_rate False False

transcript_duration

Total duration of transcripts (in seconds) for which this is the main speaker (not total speaking time)

Display title Export name Filterable Multiple values
Transcript duration participant_transcript_duration True False

type

Whether a participant is a main speaker (interviewee), interviewer, or bystander.

Display title Export name Filterable Multiple values
Speaker type participant_type True False

Option codes and descriptions

Code Description
Bystander Speaker not originally meant to be interviewed who happened to be caught on tape
Interviewer Trained sociolinguist conducting sociolinguistic interviews
Main speaker Interviewee representing a neighborhood of Pittsburgh

year_of_birth

Year of birth

Display title Export name Filterable Multiple values
Birth year participant_year_of_birth True False