Articulation (speech)

“ Now, as deaf and dumb persons educated without articulation can only have two of the means, viz., the third and the fourth, that is, the impressions made upon the eye by characters and the action of the hand in writing, can it be questioned that we render them an essential service by adding the actions of the organs of speech, a very powerful auxiliary, since by it words become, as it were, a part of ourselves, and more immediately affect us ? ”

“ Articulation is the forming and joining of the elementary sounds of speech. It seems an appalling task to utter articulately the third-of-a million words that go to make up our English vocabulary, but the way to make a beginning is really simple: learn to utter correctly, and with easy change from one to the other, each of the forty-four elementary sounds in our language. ”

“ The relationships between the parts of speech are the medium through which articulation is possible between ideas and signs, whether sounds or graphs—the medium by which one manifestation of energy is capable of transmutation into another so that the series of transmutations shall result in the intelligible phenomenon called speech. ”

“ The development of oral speech, following the path of least resistance, will naturally be from the simple to the complex. Combinations of five, six or more letters, representing as many elements of sound, will not generally be resorted to so long as there are abundant simpler combinations, consistent with the possibilities of vocal articulation, to draw from. ”

“ Articulation, in language, is the forming of the human voice, accompanied by the breath, in some few consonants, into the simple and compound sounds, called vowels, consonants, and diphthongs, by the assistance of the organs of speech ”

“ Enunciation has to do with careful, distinct utterance so that any word or any part of a word is completely audible. This concerns distinctness.
Articulation has to do with the act of gracefully and skillfully manipulating those organs of speech necessary for the correct pronunciation and distinct enunciation of words. This concerns skillfulness.
At least a part of the following exercises should be practiced daily, preferably in the morning. A few minutes’ practice is a splendid tonic for the tasks of the day. ”

“ Thus we have seen the men of all countries and all races beginning in literary æsthetics by blending into an indissoluble trinity mimicry, music, and poetry, or, in short, song and the scenic dance. In fact, as we have often shown, articulate speech begins by being the least important member of that æsthetic trinity ”

“ You will call to mind the fact, that, when we say we cannot hear a speaker, it is not that we do not hear the sound of his voice, but that we cannot understand the words. Bearing this in mind, you will see that perfect articulation is what is wanted, and that fulness added to your voice in middle pitch will make the voice reach, will require less effort, and will produce better effect. ”

“ As long as men use articulate speech, [Pg 88] some few among them will take delight in moulding it into rhythmical forms of harmonious beauty, in order to find the most perfect expression for the intimate desires and movements of the soul. ”

“ Imitation is the melody of the eye, inflection is the melody of the ear. All that strikes the eye has a sound; this is why the sight of the stars produces an enchanting melody in our souls.
Hence in a discourse, speech is the letter, and it is inflection and gesture which give it life. ”

“ All vocal expression is the revelation of the processes of thinking or the elemental actions of the mind. The meaning of the expressive modulations of the voice must be gained from a study of the actions of the mind and their expression in common conversation. While words are conventional symbols, modulations of the voice are natural signs, which accompany the pronunciation of words, and are necessary elements of natural speech. ”

“ The voice should fall of itself with only that degree of force which is legitimately given by the breath tension, produced easily, though firmly, by the breathing muscles. Breadth will be given to the tone by some degree of expansion at the back of the mouth, or in the pharynx. As soon as can be, the speech should be brought down to the utmost of simplicity and naturalness, so that the thought of literature can be expressed with reality and truth ”

“ Then, again, we have discovered that often we are made to feel most deeply, not by detailed statement, but by suggestion: in the case of a speaker, perhaps by a momentary gesture, or play of features, by a sudden inflection of the voice, or a pause in speech, and the occasional accent of a word or sentence; in the case of a writer, often as much by what he leaves unsaid, by the thought that is veiled behind the statement, by the choice and emphasis of certain features of his record. Further, we may have learned to find occasional value even in uncertainty or indecision. ”

“ Articulate speech, which separates the language of man from that of the lower animals, is divided, as grammar teaches, into sounds and articulations. The sounds or vowels are made up of all the continuous and uniform noises that the vocal organs can emit. ”

“ In poetry, as we have found already in our general differentiation of the several arts, tone is not as such elicited and artistically produced by various humanly constructed instruments, but the articulate sound of the human organ of speech is reduced to the mere symbol of speech, retaining thereby nothing more than the value of a sign of ideas, which is by itself devoid of significance. ”

“ What we are most deficient in is articulation—that powerful articulation which isolates, engraves, and chisels a thought ... which fills the ear with harmony and the soul with truth; which gives the orator an extraordinary power of animation, by bringing into play the whole nervous system. We have already remarked that the force of a word is entirely in the consonant, whereas it is often laid on the vowel. ”

“ In ordinary speech we arrive at a certain harmony by the modulations of voice: in poetry the same thing is done systematically by a regular collocation of syllables. It has been well observed, that every one who declaims warmly, or grows intent upon a subject, rises into a sort of blank verse or measured prose. ”

“ Language, rather than matter, would thus become the object of emulation—speeches would swell into orations—and, in this contention and conflict of genius, men of cleverness, ready wit, brilliant imagination, retentive memory, caustic reply, and last, though not least, soundness of constitution, would rise to the surface, far above those who, with much deeper reflection, much heavier sense, more sterling knowledge, and more powerful judgment, were yet found to be wanting in activity in their parts of speech. ”

“ It may be well to make clear to our minds what constitutes the elements of all languages. It is a fundamental and common trait of articulate speech that the groups of sounds which are uttered serve to convey ideas, and each group of sounds has a fixed meaning. ”

“ If language is a structure and if the significant elements of language are the bricks of the structure, then the sounds of speech can only be compared to the unformed and unburnt clay of which the bricks are fashioned. ”

“ A clear, crisp articulation holds an audience as by the spell of some irresistible power. The choice word, the correct phrase, are instruments that may reach the heart, and awake the soul if they fall upon the ear in melodious cadence; but if the utterance be harsh and discordant they fail to interest, fall upon deaf ears, and are as barren as seed sown on fallow ground. In language, nothing conduces so emphatically to the harmony of sounds as perfect phrasing—that is, the emphasizing of the relation of clause to clause, and of sentence to sentence by the systematic grouping of words. ”

“ The inactive jaw, tongue, and lips must be made mobile, and in the working away of clumsiness and slovenliness of speech, some degree of stiltedness must perhaps, for a time, be in evidence, but matured practice ought finally to result, not only in accuracy and finish, but in simplicity and ease in speaking.
MAKING THE POINT When the student has made a fair degree of progress in the more strictly mechanical features of speech, the formation of tone, and the delivery of words, he is ready to give himself up more fully to the effective expression of thought. ”

“ If without your thinking of it you find yourself becoming more earnest in speech, and more impressed with the seriousness of the issue you are arguing, your voice will show it naturally. So when you are writing: your earnestness will show, if you have had the training and have the natural gift for expression in words, in a lengthening and more strongly marked rhythm, in an intangibly richer coloring of sound. In speech the rhythm is apt to be shown in what is called parallel structure, the repetition of the same form of sentence, and in rhetorical questions. ”

“ With the voice man at first imitated the few sounds of nature, while with gesture he exhibited actions, motions, positions, forms, dimensions, directions, and distances, and their derivatives. It would appear from this unequal division of capacity that oral speech remained rudimentary long after gesture had become an art. ”

“ And speech is not a separate faculty, but the expression of all our faculties, to which all our other powers of expression, signs, looks, gestures, lend their aid, of which the instrument is not the tongue only, but more than half the human frame. ”

“ The articulate sounds of which words are composed may indeed be called their matter, but they do not become words, do not constitute a part of speech until they have thought and significancy breathed into them like the breath of life into man. ”

“ According as feeling is stronger and firmer, as in the expression of courage, determination, firm resolve, resistance, intense devotion, the voice is kept sustained, with pauses rather abrupt and decisive; if the feeling, though of high sentiment, is tranquil, without aggressiveness, the voice has more of the wavelike rise and fall, and at the pausing places the tone is gradually diminished, rather than abruptly broken off. In the case of quickly impulsive, passionate feeling, the speech is likely to be much varied in pitch, broken by frequent abrupt stops, and decisive inflections. ”

“ This work aims to show how to breathe correctly, produce voice properly, put the meaning into words by aid of inflection, emphasis, and the tones of the voice; how to improve the memory, acquire fluency of speech, control an audience, construct speeches, and in every way become competent to think on one’s feet and express thought vocally in an entertaining, convincing, and moving manner. ”

“ The sense lies not in speech, but in inflection and gesture. Nature institutes a movement, speech names the movement. Writing is a dead letter.
Speech is only the title of that which gesture has announced; speech comes only to confirm what is already understood by the auditors. ”

“ The subject, the occasion, to a great extent the man, determine whether a speech is in the main dispassionate or impassioned, whether it is plain or ornate in statement, whether it is urgent or aggressive, or calm and rather impassive. It would be beyond our purpose to consider many of the variations and complexities of feeling that enter into vocal expression. ”

“ In these, speech is the direct (although, it is true, unconscious) expression of intelligence; for Noiré, on the other hand, it is the outcome of will. “Language is the result of association, of community of feeling, of a sympathetic activity which, at the outset, was accompanied by sounds...; it is the child of will and not of sensation.” Speech is derived from community of action, from the collaboration of primitive men, from the common use of their activities. When our muscles are in action, we feel it a relief to utter sounds. ”

“ In concluding this survey, some general considerations suggest themselves as to the nature and first beginnings of language. In studying the means of expression among men in stages of mental culture far below our own, one of our first needs is to clear our minds of the kind of superstitious veneration with which articulate speech has so commonly been treated, as though it were not merely the principal but the sole means of uttering thought. ”

“ It has been well said concerning the custom of prefacing the art of speaking any tongue by a drilling in the parts of speech and their functions, that it is about as reasonable as prefacing the art of walking by a course of lessons on the bones, muscles, and nerves of the legs ”

“ Human word is composed of three languages. Man says what he feels by inflections of the voice, what he loves by gesture, what he thinks by articulate speech. The child begins with feeling; then he loves, and later, he reasons. While the child only feels, cries suffice him; when he loves, he needs gestures; when he reasons, he must have articulate language. The inflections of the voice are for sensations, gesture is for sentiments; the buccal apparatus is for the expression of ideas. Gesture, then, is the bond of union between inflection and thought. ”

“ At the same time this very imperfection of speech, and the struggle of primitive thought to express itself in language sometimes creates, as it were by accident, the very flower of strength and vividness in picturesque description, and the interpretation of emotion as the most skillful art has been unable to do. ”