Walter Ripman

“ We may turn our attention mainly to the requirements of the public speaker—clergyman, actor, singer, lecturer, reciter, or politician; this is the province of the teachers of elocution. It must be confessed that these have rarely had a scientific training; in many cases they base their teaching on their own experience as reciters and on what their powers of observation have enabled them to learn from their pupils; and they frequently hand on traditions obtained from their own teachers, which may have nothing but old age to recommend them. ”

“ Good breathing is essential not only for the singer or the public speaker; it is essential for every teacher and for every pupil. It is necessary for good speech, and it is necessary for good health. The teacher should ascertain as soon as possible whether his pupils are breathing well; a simple test is to determine how long they can hold their breath. They should certainly all be able to do so for forty seconds, and should gradually learn to emit a vowel sound for at least thirty seconds without a pause, and with uniform pitch and volume. ”

“ In ordinary breathing we take about the same time to draw the breath into the lungs as to let it out. In English speech we use only the breath which is let out; and when we are speaking we accordingly draw it in quickly and let it out slowly. This requires careful adjustment; if we are not careful, our breath gives out in the middle of a sentence. ”

“ Stops consist of two parts: the closing of the passage, and the subsequent opening of it; this opening resembles a little explosion, and stops are accordingly sometimes called plosives or explosives. Observe that the ear does not require to perceive both the closure and the opening; one is enough to give the impression of the sound. When you say hope or wit or luck, you need only hear the closing of the passage; you can leave your mouth shut, yet to the ear the word will seem complete. ”

“ Before the learner can acquire the fresh habits of speech peculiar to the foreign language, his teacher must know clearly what distinguishes the new sounds from those familiar in the mother tongue, for only then can the foreign pronunciation be imparted in a methodical way. It has been shown convincingly that it is vain to trust altogether to imitation, however correct and clear may be the pronunciation of the teacher. ”

“ In talking to educated strangers, we are usually careful in our pronunciation. If we occupy a position which makes it necessary to speak to large numbers, we must be particularly careful, and that in several respects: the voice must be pleasant, carry far, and have good staying power.
57. A pleasant voice is to a certain degree a natural gift; it depends on the quality of the vocal chords, the shape of the roof of the mouth, and so on. Many voices are spoilt by bad habits, such as excessive nasalising, or very high pitch. The teacher of elocution often gives valuable criticism and help here. ”

“ As we have seen above, the older generation and the younger do not speak exactly alike. Now the changes in the spoken language are gradual, and quite unconscious; but a change in the recognised spelling of words is something tangible. It conflicts with a habit we have acquired. ”

“ Assimilation of consonants is common in English, and the more colloquial the speech is, the more assimilation you are likely to find. Assimilation reduces the number of movements which have to be made, and thus represents a saving of trouble; and in colloquial speech we incline to take as little trouble as possible.
The general rule is, that when two sounds come together, those movements of articulation which are common to both are executed once only. ”

“ It is to be feared that the majority of those professing to teach elocution are little better than quacks; and by no one is this more readily acknowledged than by the few who have made an earnest study of the art of public speaking and singing.
The physicist considers the production of sounds from another point of view; he measures the waves of sound with delicate instruments. The physiologist, again, studies the organs of speech in a state of health and sickness. ”

“ Attention must be drawn to this matter, as teachers often regard pupils as inattentive and dull and reprimand them, when they are really hard of hearing. The teacher's mistake is to some extent pardonable, because the defect is easily overlooked, especially as a pupil may hear badly in one ear and not in the other, and thus seem inattentive only when the teacher happens to be standing on the side of his defective ear. ”

“ Thus when we say f or v, the breath passes out through the teeth; the only difference between the two sounds being that in saying v, the breath is also engaged in setting the vocal chords vibrating. Say e (as in he) and gradually raise the tongue still further, thus narrowing the passage; you will reach a point when you no longer produce a vowel, but a continuant, namely the sound heard at the beginning of yes. These sounds are called continuants, because we can prolong them at will; indeed, we can dwell on them until no more breath is left in the lungs. ”

“ You use more force for the stressed than for the unstressed vowels, that is to say, you put more breath into them. Place your hand close in front of your lips as you say the above sounds, and you will notice a distinct increase of breath as the stressed syllable is uttered.
We use this stress for purposes of emphasis; generally speaking, we expend more breath on those syllables of a word, or words of a sentence, which are more important for the meaning. We may say that English sentence stress is guided by logical considerations. ”

“ However distant may be a complete reform, it is certainly helpful to be conscious of the evil; only thus can we neutralize some of its bad effects. The most obvious of these is the lack of ear training in our schools, where the mother tongue has been learnt on the basis of the written and not the spoken language. The only method for teaching English reading and writing which can commend itself to the student of the language no less than to the student of childhood is the method identified with the name of Miss Dale. ”

“ When a child speaks alone, self-consciousness may make it hesitate or prevent it from raising its voice. But the chorus [Pg 10] work must be guided with care and used with moderation. Nothing could surely be more objectionable than the monotonous sing-song into which the reading of a class is almost sure to degenerate if all or nearly all their reading is in chorus. The teacher will guard against this by making the pupils feel what they read, and thus insisting on expressive and therefore interesting speech. ”

“ A cold in the nose often prevents the breath from passing through it; and this renders it impossible to produce the nasal consonants m, n, and ng (as in sing) , the kindred sounds b, d, and g being substituted for them. A similar difficulty is experienced by children with adenoid growths. This is commonly called "speaking through the nose"; it is just the reverse.
9. In speaking, as a rule, the passage to the nose is closed and the breath finds its passage through the mouth. The shape of this passage can be modified in many ways, because several organs of speech are movable. ”

“ You will soon feel how your tongue moves, without needing to look at it. This consciousness of the muscular [Pg 17] action of your tongue is valuable, and you must take pains to develop it. Watch the movements of your tongue as you utter other vowel sounds; they will be treated systematically in due course.
By means of these movable organs of speech the mouth passage assumes various forms; it may still be wide enough to leave a free course for the breath, or it may be quite narrow, or it may be closed at some point. ”

“ He seeks to ascertain how sounds are produced, and how they are represented in writing; he traces the changes which sounds undergo according to time and place; he attempts to determine the standard of speech for his own time and his own surroundings; he considers how the pronunciation is best imparted to the young and to foreigners. ”

“ To practise this, dwell on various voiced sounds for a long time, emitting the breath slowly and regularly.
Only the voiced sounds can be produced with varying pitch; they are musical, the rest are noises. Notice, in church for instance, how the tune is carried by the voiced sounds; the voiceless ones seem to break the course of the tune.
When the vocal chords are short they vibrate more quickly than when they are long, and quicker vibrations give a higher pitch. This explains why the average pitch of a woman's voice is higher than that of a man. ”

“ Point stops. [24] —The breath is stopped by the action of the point of the tongue touching the teeth (in which case we have true dentals) or the upper gums (this is known as alveolar articulation, "alveoli" being the learned word for the gums) . In English the point of the tongue rarely touches the teeth; usually it touches the upper gums, sometimes the hard palate (this should be avoided) , in which case it approaches [k] . ”

“ If we neither leave the vocal chords apart nor bring them together quite closely, but let them touch lightly, then the air as it passes out will make them vibrate; and breath accompanied by this vibration is voice [5] in the narrower application of the word. In ordinary speech this vibration is an essential part of all vowels and of many consonants. They are accordingly called voiced [6] sounds; those produced without vibration of the vocal chords are voiceless. ”

“ After voiceless sounds, as in Tuesday, tube, [j] occasionally passes into the corresponding voiceless [ç] , which is the consonant sound in the German ich; and sometimes it even becomes [ʃ] , compare the careless pronunciation of don't you know [dountʃənou] , last year [lɑːs tʃiə] , he'll meet you [hijl mijtʃu] ; I shall hit you is in vulgar speech [ɑi ʃəl itʃə] . For this development in unstressed syllables, see § 45.
Back continuants.—When we utter the vowel sound of who the back of the tongue is raised; if we raise it a little higher, there is friction, and we obtain the back continuants. ”

“ Pupils who show a tendency to nasalising can be cured by frequent exercises in uttering the mouth (or oral) vowels.
It is, however, maintained by some teachers of voice production that the best vowel sounds are produced when the velum does not quite prevent the passage of air through the nose.
[Pg 16]
In producing a nasal consonant (such as m) , we stop the breath somewhere in the mouth (e.g. at the lips when we utter m) , and let it pass out through the nose. ”

“ The u sounds are clearly parallel to the i sounds. In both cases we have a laxly articulated short sound, and a diphthong in which the tongue rises towards the end.
The short sound in would, book, etc., is open, and the sign for it is [ᴜ] . Do you notice any difference in the length of the vowel sound in the words should and put, pull and cook? Observe others, if you are uncertain in your own case. (You will sometimes find it hard to determine what is your natural, instinctive way of pronouncing a word, when once [Pg 69] you have grown accustomed to watching your own speech.) ”

“ Language is always changing, and the younger generation does not speak exactly as the older [Pg 5] generation does. The standard of to-day will no longer be the standard a hundred years hence. Nevertheless, it is well to inquire what may be regarded as the best speech of our own day, with a view to conforming to this speech and teaching its use to our pupils. ”

“ Certain affections of the throat interfere with the action of the vocal chords, and they become incapable of vibrating; then we "lose our voice." When we "lower the voice," we make the vibrations slower, and lower the pitch. When we "drop the voice to a whisper," we are intentionally preventing them from vibrating. This much diminishes the carrying power of the voice, and we thereby ensure that our words are heard only by those who are quite close. ”

“ For this purpose he will find it best to articulate more tensely (this applies also to the consonants) than in ordinary speech; and a distinct rounding of the lips for the back vowels will enable him to add to their value. He will prefer to keep the tongue point well forward in the mouth for [l] . This and other hints he may obtain from the teacher of elocution.
However pleasant a voice may be, and however far it may carry, it will yet be of little use if it tires soon; it must have staying power. This again is to some extent a natural gift; the throat may be constitutionally weak. ”

“ The diphthongal character of the "long o" is so essential, that when a stranger merely says [oːnoː] for oh no! we at once recognise that he is not English.
The first element of this diphthong is a middle [o] , sometimes a fairly close [o] ; in standard English the [o] is never so close as in French [o] or in German [ɔː] . [55] (Watch foreigners when they utter these sounds; notice how tensely they articulate, and how much more they round their lips than we do.) In cockney speech the first element is pronounced with the tongue lower and raised in front.—The second is a u sound ”