Good Articulation

1 It enables us to speak for long periods of time without tiring. As in any sport, muscles used correctly can work more effectively for much longer than muscles used incorrectly.

2 The more these muscles are exercised the clearer the speech becomes and listeners find it much easier to understand you. As in sport – the fitter you are the easier it becomes.

3 It enables you and the audience to concentrate more on the content of what you are saying rather than how you are saying it – they don’t need to decipher it. If your technique is good in sport you can concentrate on winning – you don’t need to worry about how to make the shot.

LAZINESS

Many problems of articulation are caused by bad habits and laziness.

We may mumble our words or perhaps speak out of the corner of our mouth because we want to sound like our friends – it may not be fashionable among our peers to speak clearly.

However, most cases of bad articulation are caused, not by design, but simply by laziness. We know what we are saying so we expect other people to know what we mean. We just can’t be bothered to use our mouths.

Look at the following example:

suppose you are serving in tennis, the ball hits the net because you were too lazy to stretch your arm up would you then expect to win the point because you knew where you wanted the ball to go.

It would be ludicrous but the principle is the same. There is no reason why people should know in advance what you are going to say, therefore you must speak clearly and use your facial muscles to produce good articulation which in turn creates clear speech.

ORGANS OF SPEECH

There are five organs of speech which we use to create good articulation.

1. The tongue

2. The lips

3. The teeth

4. The soft palate

5. The hard palate

As the sound enters the mouth these organs of speech alter the sound.

The lips can be moved forwards and backwards and can change the shape of the mouth.

The tongue is the only muscle in the body connected directly to a bone, it can move in and out, from side to side, it can twist and can move very quickly.

The teeth cannot move but are used in conjunction with the lips and tongue. We notice the importance of teeth when we listen to young children who are waiting for the tooth fairy to arrive or to more elderly people whose teeth have unfortunately not managed to reach such an old age as they have!

The soft palate is the back of the roof of the mouth. It can be lowered or raised for differing sounds.

The hard palate is the front of the roof of the mouth and cannot move. It is the bony bit near the teeth and like the teeth it is used in conjunction with the tongue.

Try saying these two simple words:

AT ALL

These two little words represent four sounds and the tongue moves so quickly to produce four sounds that we don’t notice. We have ‘a’ as in cat, ‘t’ as in tuh, ‘aw’ as in crawl and ‘l’ as in luh.

VOWEL SOUNDS

Speech sounds are either vowel sounds or consonant sounds.

We have five vowels, a,e,i,o, and u but as many as twenty six different vowel sounds.

For example, take the vowel ‘a’, now imagine its sound in the following words, car, cat and way.

The same with the ‘e’ in bet and bee. Each sound is different and it is the sound that is important not the name of the letter.

The breath for vowel sounds comes up through the vocal cords and straight out through the mouth. The different sounds are made by altering the positions of the tongue and lips. Note that for these vowel sounds the organs of speech never touch each other.

The teeth shouldn’t touch the lips, the tongue shouldn’t touch the hard palate and the lips don’t touch each other. Sometimes the tongue may rest behind the bottom teeth although technically it shouldn’t.

For those of you who might be interested in more technical details, there are three types of vowel sounds.

If the position of the lips and tongue do not alter during the sound it is a monophthong. An example is ‘ee’. Once the sound has been started the mouth stays in the same position.

If the position of the lips and tongue alter from one position to another, it is a diphthong. An example is the sound ‘ay’. The mouth closes slightly.

If there are three positions, it is a triphthong. An example of this is ‘our’ which is often mispronounced as ‘are’ which is only a monophthong.

Look in the mirror as you say the above words.

CONSONANT SOUND

A consonant sound comes up through the vocal cords and is then stopped in the mouth by the contact of two of the organs of speech. We have to remember that it is the sound of the consonant and not the letter name that is important.

The fourth letter of the alphabet is called ‘dee’ but its sound is not dee but more of a duh.

To achieve good articulation each word must be finished right to the last syllable and to the final consonant.

This articulation helps us to project our voice and this means that we do not have to shout which is obviously beneficial to us.

Being able to use our organs of speech correctly enables the sound to carry further, just as using the correct grip will make hitting a tennis ball or golf ball easier and will enable it to go further. The wrong technique will give you aches and pains just as shouting will give you a sore throat.

The organs of speech need as much training and care as any other muscles in the body.

Try the sounds below out loud to see how the organs of speech work.

The two lips touching produce the ‘p’, ‘b’ and ‘m’ sounds – (puh, buh and muh)

The teeth and lips touching create a ‘f’ or ‘v’ sound.

The tongue and hard palate mage a ‘d’, ‘t’, ‘n’ or ‘l’ sound.

The tongue and soft palate produce the ‘k’ and ‘g’ sounds.

EXERCISE AND DRILLS

In order to correct lazy speech and achieve good articulation we have to practice and make the muscles work effectively.

In any sport there are drills which you perform in practice over and over again but that you wouldn’t dream of reproducing in a match. Dribbling around cones in football, running and picking up tennis balls in tennis and stretching in dancing are all examples of routine drills which have to be performed daily but you wouldn’t see any of the Manchester United players running around cones during a match at Old Trafford.

It goes without saying that there is no point in doing any of these drills if you do not give 100%.

The same is true of speech drills. There is no point in whispering them or speaking quickly so that you can get them finished in a hurry! They have to be performed out loud and slowly if they are to do you any good.

Incidentally, I would never expect you to do any of these drills in public, this is because when you do these drills you must open your mouth as wide as possible which if done correctly will result in you making funny faces.

Try to speak to an object when you do these drills, it doesn’t matter what it is, it could be a chair, a teddy bear, a clock or a telephone. Focus on the object – look at it and direct the sound towards that object.

Below are two different drills for vowel sounds. Make sure they are repeated out loud.

‘I’ sound pronounced ‘eye’

My shot is a mile wide of the line. Mouth open as wide as it will go. Pull your jaw down with your hand.

‘O’ sound pronounced ‘oh’

Oh dear, my throw is too slow and too low. For the ‘oh’ sound you need a round mouth

The following are consonant exercises. You must make sure that you sound the first and last consonant in each word. Rather like you do when shouting at a child or a dog!

I need to win the first point at the net.

I would have got a birdie at the third but my putt went long.

CORRECT NUMBER OF SYLLABLES

We need to be very careful not to cut words short. Quite often we are in such a hurry to finish what we are saying that we miss out parts of words. Examples of this can be seen in the following words:

1. ‘Secretary’ which is often shortened to ‘secretry’. Instead of giving it four syllables it is only given three.

2. ‘Every’ is nearly always pronounced ‘Evry’. It should have three syllables but is only given two.

3. ‘Extraordinary’ should be pronounced as ‘ex-tra-or-di-na-ry’ but is often pronounced as ‘ex-tro-di-na-ry’. It should have six syllables not five.

While we must not miss out parts of words, we must also be careful not to add syllables that are not there.

The word ‘athlete’ is a good example of this. People who do not speak correctly often say ‘athlelete’ making the word three syllables long when it should only be two. Other examples are umbrella, pronounced umberella and toddler pronounced toddeler.

Another example of a word which is mispronounced is ‘tomorrow’, this is often pronounced ‘tamorrow’, we lose the long vowel sound ‘oo’.

When hitting a ground stroke you don’t stop your arm the minute the racket hits the ball, a golfer also knows the value of swinging through the ball.

Your breath needs to be long enough for the sound, but no longer. Take in just the right amount of air.

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