THE ORGANS OF SPEECH
4. For speaking we need breath.
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. This is one of the things that jar, and must be avoided.
The more breath we can draw in (or inhale) at once, the longer we can use it for speech as we let it out (or exhale it). It is therefore to our advantage to grow accustomed to taking deep breaths, and thus to increase the capacity of the lungs.
"Deep breaths" expresses exactly what is wanted. The lungs are like two elastic bellows. We may expand them only a little; we can expand them a great deal. The student should make himself familiar with the shape of the lungs. They occupy the chest, which is a kind of box with elastic sides and bottom. The sides are held out by the ribs, and when the two sets of ribs are drawn apart, the sides of the box are made larger. The bottom of the box (called the diaphragm) is not flat, but rounded, bulging upwards when the lungs are empty. When, however, the diaphragm contracts so that breath is drawn into the lungs to their full capacity, it becomes practically flat. If at the same time we extend the ribs, then we have a considerably increased space for the lungs. Often, however, there is the less satisfactory kind of breathing in which the ribs are not sufficiently active. The descending diaphragm then presses on the soft parts underneath, and this in turn leads to a pushing forward of the abdomen.[2]
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. Breathing exercises should form a regular part of the pupils' physical training, and the teacher should make a point of drawing the instructor's special attention to pupils whose breathing appears defective.
5. The teacher should also make sure that the air breathed is the best procurable under the conditions; he must never relax in his care that the ventilation is good. The results of recent research have not yet been sufficiently taken to heart, and much weariness and ill-health are still due to quite avoidable causes. It may be laid down as an absolute necessity that there should be a pause of at least five minutes in the winter, and at least ten in the summer between consecutive periods of teaching, the periods themselves not exceeding fifty minutes, even in the case of the oldest pupils of school age. During the interval the doors and windows should be thrown wide open, and the room flushed with fresh air. The floor should be either of hard wood treated with "dustless oil" or of cork linoleum. The blackboard should be wiped with a damp cloth, in order to prevent the chalk from vitiating the air. In this way the microbes and particles of dust will be sensibly reduced in number, and the proportion of oxygen in the air will remain satisfactory.
The seats and desks must be of such a kind that the pupils will naturally assume positions favourable for good breathing. They must be graduated in size; the seats must have suitably curved backs; and there must be some adjustment by which the edge of the desk will overhang the edge of the seat when the pupils are writing, whereas there is a clear space between them when the pupil stands. This may be obtained either by making the desk as a whole, or the lid of it, move forward and backward; or by making the seat movable. It is not the place here to enter into further details with regard to these important matters; it must suffice to remind the teacher that unceasing perseverance is required. Gently, but firmly, he must insist that his pupils hold themselves well; not stiffly, of course, nor without variety of position. To sit rigidly means a great strain for a child[3]; and it is very desirable that pupils should have frequent opportunities of changing their posture, and especially of resting against the back of the seat.
6. It will often be found that a few minutes given to breathing exercises in the middle of a lesson will serve to freshen the pupils. An excellent set of exercises is given in Dr Hulbert's Breathing for Voice Production (publ. by Novello), which teachers will do well to read and to put into practice.[4] Many of the throat troubles of which teachers complain are directly due to bad breathing and bad ventilation.
Singing and speaking in chorus, if heartily done by all, may be regarded as admirable breathing exercises, apart from their use in other respects.
A few words with regard to chorus work may be useful to the teacher. If well carried out, it can be of great service. The individual is encouraged to speak up well; it is often found that the class speaking in chorus is better in pronunciation than the majority of those composing it. When a child speaks alone, self-consciousness may make it hesitate or prevent it from raising its voice. But the chorus 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.
This diagram represents a vertical section through the larynx, the hinder part of which is removed, showing the narrowing through which the breath has to pass.
Epiglottis.
Left vocal chord.
Right vocal chord.
Cases of mouth-breathing, usually due to adenoid growths, cannot be cured by the teacher; but it is his duty to take the earliest possible notice of such a case, and to ensure that those in charge of the child are warned of the danger incurred by delay in consulting a medical man.
The breath on leaving the lungs passes through the windpipe—and in ordinary breathing there is nothing in its way. In speaking, however, there is often something in its way: a beautiful contrivance, capable of the most varied and delicate adjustment, and known as the vocal chords. They are situated where, in a man, we see the "Adam's apple."
View of the vocal chords opened to their widest extent, showing the windpipe to its bifurcation.
The accompanying illustration will serve to explain their nature. It will be seen that the vocal chords spring from both sides of the windpipe. They are really rather of the nature of flexible ridges or shallow flaps than cords. By means of muscles acting on certain cartilages they can be brought closely or lightly together. They consist of a soft fleshy part at one end, and a harder cartilaginous part at the other.
The position of the vocal chords, in other words the nature of the glottis (i.e. the opening between the vocal chords), modifies the breath in many ways.
When they are apart, in what we may call the rest position, the breath passes through unhindered. When we want a particularly large supply of breath, as in blowing, we keep them still more apart. When we wish to "hold our breath," we close them firmly. When we wish to "clear our throat," we press them together and then let the breath come out in jerks; if this is done violently and (as a rule) unintentionally, a cough is produced; sometimes we do it slightly before the opening vowel of a word spoken emphatically (this is commonly the case in German, and is known as the "glottal stop").
We may also close only the fleshy ends, and leave the cartilaginous ends open; then we speak in a whisper.
7. 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.[7]
The vibration can be felt in several ways. Utter a long s and then a long z (the sounds at the beginning of seal and zeal respectively), again long s, again long z, and so on; at the same time put your fingers to your throat, or put your hands to both ears, or lay your hand on the top of your head, and you cannot fail to notice the vibration every time you utter z. Try it also with f v f v f v, etc., and with the sounds written s in sure and z in azure, and the sounds written th in thistle and th in this. Then proceed to p and b, t and d, k and g (as in go). Lastly, utter a long ah with full voice, and then whisper the same sound softly. Ascertain in each case which sound is accompanied by vibration of the vocal chords.
Utter a long f and suddenly separate the lower lip from the upper teeth, and nothing more will be heard; but utter a long v and again suddenly separate the lip from the teeth, and you will hear the "voice," with a sound like the [ə] described in § 38. (It is the sound uttered when we hesitate in our speech, and is usually represented in writing by "er ... er.")
It is important that the vibration should be good. If it is slow, the pitch will be low; if it is quick, the pitch will be high. But whatever the pitch, the vibration must be uniform. 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. When a boy's voice "breaks," this is due to certain changes affecting his vocal chords; it is important that the voice should not be subjected to any excessive strain when it is in this stage.
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. A peculiar variety is the "stage aside," when the actor tries to convey the impression that his words are not heard by those near him, yet desires them to be heard by the spectators, many of whom are much farther away. This is a very loud whisper; it naturally requires a considerable effort and is very tiring.
8. The breath which has passed between the vocal chords and issues from the windpipe passes through the mouth, or through the nose, or through both. This is rendered possible by a soft movable flap which can at will be made to close the way through the nose, or—hanging loosely—to leave both passages open. Take a small mirror and look at the inside of your mouth, standing so that as much light as possible falls into it; you will see this flap, the velum, hanging down with a kind of ᐯ in the centre, the lower extremity of which is known as the uvula. Still watching your mouth, inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth; see how the velum moves as you do this. After a little while try to move the velum, closing and opening the nose passage, without uttering a sound and without breathing.
In French there are four nasal vowels (occurring in un bon vin blanc) in which the velum hangs loose, and breath passes through nose and mouth. In standard English such vowels do not exist, but another form of nasal vowel, producing a "twang," is sometimes heard in many forms of what may be called dialect speech. The Londoner is often careless about closing the nose passage, and some breath is allowed to pass out by that way so as to be perceptible to the ear in the form of friction, and to impair the quality of the vowels. The "nasal twang" is very noticeable in some forms of American English.
The nasalising tendency may also be observed in untrained singers and public speakers; it is undoubtedly a means of increasing the carrying power of the voice, and of reducing the effort of making oneself understood by a large audience. The same effect can, however, be produced by training the muscles of the chest by means of breathing exercises, and with more agreeable results to the ear.
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.
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.
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.
The lower jaw can be moved up and down.
The lips can be closed, or kept lightly touching, or the lower lip may touch the upper teeth; or the lips may be apart, assuming various shapes, from a narrow slit to a large or small circle. They may also be thrust forward, protruded.
The tongue is capable of an even greater variety of position. Again watch the inside of your mouth by means of your little mirror. Say e (as in he), a (as in father), o (as in who), and observe the movements of your tongue; then make the same movements, but without uttering the sounds. You will soon feel how your tongue moves, without needing to look at it. This consciousness of the muscular 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.
If the passage is free, the result is a vowel; if not, it is a consonant.[8]
10. If the passage is so narrow at some point that the breath cannot pass through without rubbing or brushing, we have a continuant (sometimes called a fricative). 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.
11. If the passage is closed altogether at some point, we have a stop; the breath is stopped. Say hope or wit or luck and notice how in each case there is a closure at the end. 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. (The sound will, however, carry further if you open the passage again; and in public speaking it is therefore to be recommended.) Similarly, in uttering the words pain, tell, come, only the opening of the passage is audible; yet the ear is satisfied. In the middle of a word like night-time, carefully pronounced, we hear both the closure and the opening; and the interval between the two gives our ear the impression that there are two t's.[9] In quick speech, however, the closure is usually inaudible in such words or, more correctly, the sounds overlap.
12. The narrowing or closing of the passage may be effected at various points. The lips may be partially or completely closed; the lower lip may be pressed against the upper teeth; different parts of the tongue may be pressed against the teeth, or the gums, or the palate. Pass your finger along the roof of your mouth, and notice that only the front of it is hard; we distinguish the hard palate and the soft palate.
13. When we are eating or drinking, the food passes down the gullet, behind the windpipe. To prevent food entering the windpipe, which causes a choking sensation and coughing, there is the epiglottis (see the diagram on p. [10]), a cartilaginous flap which covers the top of it; this flap is raised when we are breathing. Hence the wisdom of the rule, not to speak while you are eating.
14. In order that speech may have its full effect, it is necessary that the hearer should hear well; this is by no means so common as is generally supposed. The importance of testing the eyesight is now recognised; but the hearing is usually neglected. 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. Further, it is a defect which often varies in intensity from day to day, according to the pupil's general condition of health. These considerations point to the urgent necessity of instituting an inspection of the hearing in our schools. The teacher can himself apply the simple test of seeing at what distance the pupil is able to hear whispered double numbers, such as 35, 81; each ear should be tested separately, a cloth being pressed against the other. The teacher will note down the two distances for each pupil, and will probably be surprised at the variations observed. It is clear that defective hearing should constitute a strong claim for a front seat in the class-room, more so than defective eyesight, which can usually be rectified by the use of suitable spectacles.
It is hardly necessary to point out that lack of cleanliness in the ears may interfere with the hearing, and that carelessness with regard to the teeth may lead to their loss and to defects of speech, apart from other unpleasant consequences. It is clear that anything in the nature of tight-lacing renders good breathing impossible; and the fashion of letting the hair cover the ears is also to be discouraged, as rendering the hearing more difficult. In men, tight collars and belts often interfere with the breathing.
15. Lastly, teachers (particularly male teachers) require to be warned against shouting; this only tires them and irritates the nerves of their pupils, while the same object can be achieved by careful articulation. Where it is used "to keep the class in order," the teacher should earnestly consider how it is that others can keep order without shouting; usually his difficulties in maintaining discipline are due to ill-health, overstrain, or general incapacity.
When the throat is relaxed, a gargle with some astringent will be found a simple remedy; a solution of alum in water may be recommended for this purpose, or a bit of borax may be held in the cheek.
16. From a very early time the attempt has been made to represent the spoken language by means of signs. Picture writing is a primitive and clumsy expedient. It was a great step forward when signs were used to represent syllables, a still further improvement when a separate sign was used for each separate sound.
At first writing was roughly phonetic, in other words, one sign was intended to represent one sound (or set of sounds), and one only; and this is still what is required of an ideal alphabet. It is a commonplace remark that the English alphabet largely fails to fulfil this requirement. The same sign represents different sounds (sign, sure, easy); the same sound is represented by different signs (catch, kill, queen, lack). Some signs are superfluous (c, x); sometimes a sound is written, but not pronounced (lamb, knee); sometimes two signs, which separately express two sounds, when used together designate a third sound altogether different from these two (ch in chat and rich).
17. How are we to explain this bewildering state of things?
It is due to two causes—the natural development of the language, and the pedantic interference of the learned.
Language is constantly changing. The rate of change is not perhaps always the same, but change there always is. 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.
In mediæval times, when there was no printing, no daily paper, no universal compulsory education, there was a good deal of freedom in the spelling, and people wrote very much as they pleased—phonetically, if they were not spoilt by "a little knowledge." But the invention of printing and the dissemination of learning changed all this. A uniform spelling came to be recognised; the nation acquired the habit of regarding it as correct, and would tolerate no deviation from it. Though it represents the pronunciation of a former age, we still use it; and we are quite upset when we read the spellings labor, center, therefor, nay even when two words are, contrary to our usage, run together, as in forever.
When our spelling received its present form not only was the language very differently pronounced, but the pedantic had already been able to wreak their wicked will on it. Thus the "learned" men of mediæval France spelled parfaict, though the c of Latin perfectum had developed into the i of parfait, and they did not pronounce the c which they introduced into the spelling. The word passed into English, and here also the c was at first only written; later on it came to be pronounced. The "learned" similarly introduced a b into the French words douter and dette (because of the Latin dubitare and debita), but had the good sense to drop it; we have it still in doubt and debt, though we leave it unpronounced. In later times we find something similar: the learned force us to spell philosophy with ph and not f. The word comes from Greek through Latin; the Greeks pronounced the ph actually as p plus h at the time when the Romans took to spelling Greek words in their language, and these continued to spell ph even when the Greeks no longer pronounced p plus h, but f, as we do now.
18. The subject of spelling reform is not within the scope of this book; but it presents itself naturally to all who take an intelligent interest in the language. It seems probable that much good will be achieved by the Simplified Spelling Society (44 Great Russell Street, London, W.C.; annual subscription from 1s.), which has been recently established and will undoubtedly profit by the experience of the sister society in the United States. Such spellings as wel, ful, tho, thoro, bred, plesure, will surely commend themselves as soon as the eye of the man in the street has been made familiar with them and the etymological sentimentalist has realised the astounding weakness of his arguments.
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. Apart from the sympathy and love of children pervading all her work, it is of unusual importance because she has solved the problem of starting from the spoken language, while avoiding all phonetic symbols.
19. It is, however, convenient for the student of phonetics to have a set of generally accepted signs; otherwise he would be unable to express in writing the pronunciation in such a way that other students could understand what he meant. Without phonetic symbols the designation of sounds becomes awkward. It was one of Miss Dale's many happy thoughts to connect sounds and their written form with definite words, for instance the "moon oo" and the "fern er"; but however suitable that is for the little ones, it is inconvenient for the grown-up student.
There are many phonetic alphabets; all else being equal, the one most widely used is clearly the most valuable. We have therefore chosen for this book the alphabet of the Association phonétique internationale, which is already well known in England owing to its use in a number of books for elementary instruction in French, German, and even Latin. It will commend itself to the student by its great simplicity. What will really present difficulty is rather the determination of the actual nature of the spoken word, than the representation of the sounds when once determined.
20. We now give the sounds occurring normally in standard English, and their phonetic signs; the signs for consonants which are likely to be unfamiliar are enclosed.
Consonants.
| b | as in | bat | rabble | tab |
| p | as in | pat | apple | tap |
| m | as in | man | hammer | lamb |
| d | as in | dab | bidden | bad |
| t | as in | tap | bitten | pat |
| n | as in | nut | winner | tun |
| g | as in | gut | waggle | tug |
| k | as in | cat | tackle | tack |
| ŋ | as in | singer | sing | |
| w | as in | wit | ||
| [10]ʍ | as in | when | ||
| v | as in | van | never | leave |
| f | as in | fan | stiffer | leaf |
| ð | as in | this | leather | clothe |
| θ | as in | thistle | Ethel | cloth |
| z | as in | zeal | easel | lose |
| s | as in | seal | lesson | lease |
| ʒ | as in | leisure | rouge | |
| ʃ | as in | shed | ashes | dash |
| j | as in | yes | ||
| r | as in | red | very | |
| l | as in | lip | pallor | pill |
| h | as in | hot |
Vowels.
Attention should be paid to the signs for these, as many are unfamiliar. The examples given will convey only a general idea of the sounds, which are discussed in detail in § 36 and foll. The sign ː indicates length, and ˑ half length.
| iː | is the first vowel sound[11] in bead. |
| ɪ | is the vowel sound in bit. |
| eː | is the first vowel sound[11] in braid. |
| e | is the vowel sound in bet. |
| ɛː | is the first vowel sound in fairy. |
| æ | is the vowel sound in bat. |
| a | is the first vowel sound[11] in bout, bite. |
| ɑː | is the first vowel sound in father. |
| ɔː | is the first vowel sound in glory. |
| ɔ | is the vowel sound in pot. |
| o | is the first vowel sound[11] in boat. |
| uː | is the first vowel sound[11] in rude. |
| ᴜ | is the vowel sound in put. |
| əː | is the vowel sound in burn. |
| ə | is the second vowel sound in better. |
| ʌ | is the vowel sound in but. |
The following sentences written in the conventional and the phonetic spelling will give some idea of the use of this alphabet for representing connected speech as spoken (a) very carefully, (b) quite colloquially.
For purposes of convenience the ɪ and ᴜ are not used in ordinary transcript, as there is no danger of confusion.