Imatges de pàgina
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A habit of drawing a full breath, has been mentioned, as the first preliminary to energetic and distinct enunciation. This point will, perhaps, be more clearly understood, and its value more distinctly perceived, by adverting to the circumstance, that many speakers, (adults, through the influence of neglected habit, and the young, from agitation or embarrassment,) begin to speak without a full supply of breath, or an entire inflation of the lungs, and that the mechanical impulse. of speaking commonly carries on the action of the voice, without leaving opportunity for a full supply of breath to be drawn, in the course of a whole exercise. The lungs are thus exhausted and injured, by being required to furnish, (what they have not actually received,) a volume of air sufficient to create and sustain a strong articulate utterance. The whole style of a speaker's elocution is thus rendered feeble, indistinct, and unimpressive. A due attention to the student's habits of breathing, will do much towards enabling him to speak or read with ease and distinctness, as well as to acquire a full and habitual energy of voice, and a permanent vigour of the organs of speech.*

The second requisite to distinct articulation, is a forcible expulsion of the breath. Animated conversation, on subjects interesting to the mind, and especially when a numerous company is addressed, furnishes an idea of what is meant by expulsive or forcible utterance; and the voice of a sick person,-of an individual in health, when fatigued,-of a person overwhelmed with grief, shame, or embarrassment,-may serve to illustrate the opposite quality of speech,-a faint and ineffective mode of expression. The act of public communication by oral address, requires a vigorous exertion of the organs,-a thing equally essential to animation and interest in the speaker, and to the physical possibility of his voice being heard, or his words.

* The exercise of reading or speaking in public, must necessarily be exhausting, when this point is neglected; and it is no less capable of becoming easy, salutary, and invigorating, if this circumstance receive due attention, and the supply of breath be frequently renewed, by advantage being taken of every slight pause, while the chest is always kept fully expanded.

understood by his audience. To produce an energetic and distinct articulation, the breath must be forcibly expelled, as well as freely inhaled :—a full volume of air must be transmitted, with great force, to the minor organs of speech, which give a definite character to sound.

Where the forcible emission of the breath is neglected, a grave and hollow voice, yet feeble and languid in its execution, is unavoidably contracted, by which the speaker's internal energy is much impaired, and the natural effect of his delivery is lost. A strong and adequate utterance, on the contrary, carries the voice outward, and causes it to reach with ease, and with full effect, over a large space. Expulsive enunciation should receive full attention, as an easy and natural means of strengthening the voice, and rendering it clear and distinct. As a mode of physical exercise, it is conducive to inward vigour, and to general health; and as an accomplishment in elocution, it is of the utmost consequence to the appropriate expression of elevated sentiment and natural emotion.

This kind of vocal force, however, must be carefully distinguished from that of calling or vociferation, with which it has little in common, but which is habitually exemplified by some public speakers, who indulge an undisciplined and intemperate energy of feeling or of voice, and by children, generally, when reading in a large room. It produces the style of utterance which most people erroneously adopt in conversing with a deaf person.

Contrasted with a natural and habitual tone, this mode of utterance has a false note, and an effect altogether peculiar to itself: it is the tone of physical effort transcending that of mental expression. True force of utterance, on the other hand, keeps the tone of meaning predominant, and preserves the whole natural voice of the individual, while it increases its energy. It differs from the tone of private conversation solely in additional force, and a more deliberate and distinct expression. It is the want of this style of utterance which creates formal and professional tones, or what is not unjustly called a school tone.

The third constituent of good articulation, is to be found in the proper functions of the tongue and the lips. These organs divide and modify the voice into distinct portions of sound, constituting letters and syllables, and consequently require energy and deliberateness, or due force and slowness, along with perfect precision, or exactness, in their action.

Energy in the play of these minor organs of speech, is a quality entirely distinct from loudness, or mere force in the emission of the voice. A sound may come from the lungs and the throat with great vehemence, and yet be very obscure in its peculiar character, because not duly modified by the tongue. The voice of a person under the excitement of inebriation, furnishes, sometimes, a striking illustration of this distinction. Strong emotion and great loudness of speech, are, from a cause somewhat similar, not favourable to clear expression of meaning, but often have a contrary effect; the violence of feeling and of utterance preventing the true and accurate formation of sound. Energy of articulation, on the other hand, consists in the force with which the constituent sounds of every word, are expressed by the exertion of their appropriate organs. It may exist with but very little of mere loudness. It sometimes gives indescribable power to a bare whisper. It is the quality which gives form and character to human speech, and constitutes it the appropriate vehicle of intellect; although from languor or carelessness of habit, it is too seldom exemplified in public reading and speaking.

The next point to be observed, in the action of the organs, is deliberateness or due slowness, the medium between hurry and drawling,-faults which are a great hinderance to distinctness; the former producing a mass of crowded and confused sounds which make no distinct impression on the ear, and leave no intelligible trace on the mind; and the latter causing the voice to lag lazily behind the natural movement of the mind's attention, with an unmeaning and disagreeable prolongation of sound, which takes away the spirit and the significance of speech. The degree of slowness required for an accurate and distinct enun

ciation, is such as to leave sufficient time for the true and complete formation of every sound of the voice, and for the deliberate and regular succession of words and syllables; but it is free from any approach to languor and drawling.

Force and slowness, however, are not the only qualities essential to distinct articulation. There must be, in addition to the right degree of these properties, a due attention, in every instance, to the nature of the sound to be produced, and to that exertion of the organs which is adapted to its exact execution. Articulate utterance requires, in other words, a constant exercise of discrimination in the mind, and of precision, or accuracy, in the movements of the organs of speech. A correct articulation, however, is not laboured and artificial in its character. It results from the intuitive and habitual action of a disciplined attention. It is easy, fluent, and natural; but, like the skilful execution of an accomplished musician, it gives forth every sound, even in the most rapid passages, with truth and correctness. A good enunciation gives to every vowel and consonant its just proportion and character; none being omitted, no one blending with another in such a manner as to produce confusion, and none so carelessly executed as to cause mistake in the hearer, by its resemblance to another.*

The faults most common in articulation, were mentioned at the beginning of the first lesson. They may be briefly recapitulated as consisting in feebleness of expression, arising from deficiency in organic exertion; omission, occasioned by rapidity; and obscurity, by inadvertency and negligence;-all contributing to render the voice unintelligible or indistinct. The faults opposed to these are not so prevalent, nor so objectionable, in regard to their influence on audible and clear expression, but are very unfavourable in their effect, owing to the associations inseparably connected with them they consist in undue force and prolongation

*The exercises on enunciation, in the first part of this volume, are classed with reference to the different organs which they cali into action. This arrangement was adopted with a view to the cultivation of strict accuracy of habit in articulation.

of sound, on accented syllables; and a fastidious precision or undue prominence, in those which are unaccented. These faults create an inexpressive, drawling, and childish utterance, or an artificial and affected style, which is repugnant to natural feeling and good taste.

The former of these two classes of faults, (exemplified in such enunciation as anim'l for animal, momunt for moment, &c.) strikes the ear of taste as coarse and careless; while the latter, which throws half the accent on the last syllable, and creates the Latin word animal, or the French style of momen't, destroys the natural rhythm of spoken language, and substitutes for it a languid and tedious succession of mechanical sounds. The appropriate style of English accent, is peculiarly forcible and prominent, leaving unaccented sounds very slight to the ear. The excess of this disproportion is, what may be called a natural fault; but the least deviation from this tendency of utterance, and especially any approach to an opposite extreme, produce a foreign accent.

The worst and the most prevalent of all faults, however, are those of omitting and obscuring unaccented sounds, through rapidity and negligence of articulation, which render it impossible to receive rightly the sense of what is read or spoken; since they prevent the possibility of articulate distinctions in the voice, and of corresponding discriminations by the ear. The great object of speech, is thus, to all intents, lost; for the reader or speaker is not understood.

The subject of enunciation has, thus far, been regarded chiefly as a physical exercise, or a mechanical function of the organs of speech. It will now be briefly considered in connexion with the expression. of thought and feeling. Contemplated in this view, it requires attention to the following particulars, force, pitch, and time, or rate of utterance.

Force. The distinction has been already made between the force of vociferation, and that of energetic articulation. The former was mentioned as arising from peculiar physical circumstances, and as being

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