Lesson 2 Mechanics of Speech Articulation and Pronunciation PDF

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LESSON 2: THE MECHANICS OF SPEECH- ARTICULATION AND PRONUNCIATION Some people think that in speech, content is more important than delivery. However, the speaker’s failure to articulate the sounds and pronounce the words properly may become a grave barrier to effective communication. It has often been said that the first duty of the speaker is to be heard and understood easily. Even if he speaks with a voice of pleasing quality and with all the variety that could be desired if he utters his words weakly and indistinctly, his audience will soon tire of the effort trying to understand him. In this module, we are concerned with making our speech intelligible to the audience. OBJECTIVES After discussing the lessons in this segment, you are expected to:     

define and differentiate articulation and pronunciation; discuss the importance of proper articulation and pronunciation in oral communication; Identify the causes and find the solutions to errors in articulation and pronunciation. distinguish sounds; speak intelligibly.

Preliminary Activity 1. Can you say the following tongue twisters fast yet clear? a. A bloke’s back bike brake block broke.(3X) b. Cheryl’s chilly cheap chip shop sells Cheryl’s cheap chips. c. “Sheath thy sword,” the surly sheriff said. “Or surely shall a churlish serf soon shatter thee.” d. Are our oars oak? (3X) e. Black bug’s blood (5X) f. The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep is sick. (2X) I. ARTICULATION The word articulation originated from the Latin word articulare meaning “to utter distinctly.” It is the function of the joint operation of two parts of mechanism: tongue with hard palate, soft palate to teeth; lip with teeth or upper lip, and in the case of the sound [h] the vocal folds to do any of the following to the breath stream – squeeze it ( as for [f] and [v]), split it as for [s] and [z] or stop and explode it (as for [p] and [b]). Articulation, then, is physiological in

nature because it concerns the movement of the lips, tongue and jaw with precision and energy to mold sounds into intelligible word units. Clean-cut speech results from strength and flexibility in the action of these organs, never from mere loudness of tone. It is not volume, but distinctness that counts in good articulation. No speaker can afford to be careless of articulation. He inevitably pays too great a price for such inaccuracies and faults. Although important in everyday conversation, it becomes more important in the public situation. For one thing, public speech must be instantly intelligible so that the audience will not be distracted from is being said (Oliver, 1962). Errors in articulation may be caused by the following: 1. physical and psychological effect in childhood; 2. emulation of an admired person; 3. ordinary development of speech organs; 4. laziness and carelessness.

II. PRONUNCIATION Pronunciation is concerned with both intelligibility and acceptability. Words must be formed clearly and distinctly, and they must be given values, sequences and stresses which listeners will accept as meeting conventional standards of correctness. Any peculiarity of pronunciation can be damaging to the speaker’s purpose. The audience may be distracted from the thought and may even think it a mark of ignorance, lack of authority, lack of common ground and often, a sign or poor preparation. Thus, a speaker must remember that even a slight error in pronunciation can do irremediable damage to the speakerlistener relationship. I. What is correct pronunciation? Oliver(1962) defines correct pronunciation as the utterance of words within the listener norms or expectancies for sound and stress or accent. Finding an acceptable standard of pronunciation is sometimes difficult because of two reasons. First, standards differ. Some words are pronounced somewhat differently from region to region. Dialect (a variety of language that is used by one group of persons and has features of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation distinguishing it from other varieties used by groups) differences provide one reason why no hard-and-fast rules of pronunciation can be set down. It is extremely unwise to insist on a pronunciation foreign to a locality. But it is equally foolish to attempt by main force to vary your pronunciations to suit every group which you address. Second, language is always changing. What is acceptable pronunciation years ago may not be acceptable today. Every year, new words and pronunciations are added to the dictionary.

Thus the student is advised not to stick to the information in the dictionary. Nor is he advised to assume that a pronunciation heard is correct. Who determines correct pronunciation then? The best criterion to follow is the usage of the educated people in the community. Students should take as guides those who know something about the language. They can get little help from those whose vocabulary is meager and who do not care how they say the words they do know. Most students commit mistakes in pronunciation because they follow the spellings too closely. The spelling of a word is not a safe guide to determine pronunciation because many English words contain silent letters (e.g. calm, indict, subtle) and many words containing the same letter combination require different pronunciations (e.g. bough, rough, through, called, shouted, gasped). There are three essentials of good pronunciation that can guide the students learning the English language: a. The sounds of the language are important. They differentiate words. Fit-feet-fat-foot-fate church-search pus-push Sit-set-sat-soot-seat shin-chin though – dough b. The intonation of the language. Intonation is produced by the sequence of pitch of the voice. c. The rhythm of the language. Rhythm is characterized by the regular recurrence of emphasized syllables. The class in grammar is interesting. That’s a good answer. Using the dictionary. For most words, a good dictionary provides a very helpful standard. But students must use it with care. For one, the role of the dictionary is only to record as faithfully as possible those pronunciations prevailing among educated, cultured people not to dictate or create arbitrary standards. And in the case when the dictionary offers three or more pronunciations, the first is usually the most widespread and therefore preferred. But it would be wise for the student to ask the vote of their superiors on which pronunciation to use. Second, dictionaries also make use of diacritical marks which must be accurately interpreted. If students mistake the meaning of the marks, their pronunciation will be mistaken.

II. Kinds of Mispronunciations A speaker may commit the following mispronunciations: 1. misplaced stress The mere shift of stress or accent makes a striking difference because stress pattern is one of the important identifying characteristics of the English language. For example, if you say DEvice, the-A-ter, CON-dolence, instead of the accepted forms- deVICE, THEater, condolence, your error will be obviously crude. 2. omission of sound Phoneticians identify many pronunciations marred by omission of a sound as typical of “less-educated” speech. For example a speaker might say ast for asked, fist for fists, or blong for belong. 3. addition of sounds Similarly, certain pronunciations which have an extra sound have been associated with “less-educated” speech. For example, a speaker might say athalete for athlete, grievious for grievous, wunst for once or sleeps for sleep. 4. substitutions A speaker might also substitute a sound with another. For example, iss-yu for issue, git for get, tin for thin, wis for wish, den for then, classmet for classmate, sup for soft. 5. inversions Some speakers also exchange sounds in a word. For example, ferpect for perfect, bigen for begin. IV. Sources of Mispronunciations Indistinctness in speech may be caused by the following faults: 1. Immovable jaw. Some oriental people move their jaws very little in speaking. They communicate meaning by variation in vocal pitch that may not require jaw movement. In the English language, failure to open the jaws adequately is serious fault because so much meaning is conveyed by consonant sounds which cannot be made effectively unless the tongue is given enough room for vigorous movement. Even vowel sounds are muffled if jaws are kept nearly close. 2. Idle tongue. The tongue is the most important organ of speech. Even if the jaw moves if the tongue lies idle, or moves sluggishly, the sounds produced cannot be sharp. The correct production of sounds depends on the various positions and the firm and creative movement of the tongue. Practice saying [ee, ay, ah, aw, oo] and [d, th, ch, g, k]. What happens to the tongue?

3. Lazy lips. If the lips are allowed to become lazy, they will hang like soft flaps and mumbled sounds will result. 4. Excessive speed. Many problems of mispronunciations can be avoided if speakers will take time enough to get the sounds out instead of being in such a hurry to be through....