Correcting Speech Blemishes

Correcting Speech Blemishes
linguistically, India is so much similar to Europe. Each
state, region and zone has its own language with
distinct speech characteristics. Some speak their regional
languages through clenched jaws, while some through open
jaws. Some languages are guttural, while some are musical.
Consciously or unconsciously we carry our vernacular
baggage, be it national or regional, whenever we learn a
new language. People whose languages are different
obviously have different problems when they begin to learn
a new language .. be it English, Spanish or Chinese.
I believe that those who teach English to new comers
must take into account the regional language the student
has spoken from childhood. It is important to observe the
way the student moves his jaw, tongue and lips; the accent
he puts on words, the intonation of phrases which he finds
most natural are all tied up with the early habits he
developed when he began to speak. A language instructor
looks for (i) those aspects of the new language which are
most closely related to what the learner already does by
habit; and (ii) to those which are most different from his
habitual way of speaking. While the first will not require so
much attention, the second will need constant repetition.
New habits will have to be formed. Then those habits will
have to be reinforced again and again till l:he:: become

completely ingrained in the learner.
Learning a new language, and wanting to speak it well
is time-consuming. If you want to learn to speak English
clearly and distinctly, then you will have to .apply yourself
single-mindlessly to the following exercises to get rid of
speech blemishes, such as being jaw-lazy, lip-lazy, tongue-
lazy, or slurring, lisping - blemishes which distort speech
and projects you in poor light.

Exercises to Insure an Open Throat
Yawn. Yes, literally a big full-mouthed relaxed
Y-A-W-N. Repeat this several times. Use a small mirror
and examine your mouth and throat as you yawn.
Notice how the back of the tongue goes down and
the velum goes up, closing the passage into the nasal
cavity. Now try to make the velum act that way
without actually yawning.
it erect. Repeat this movement often. Then move the
head in a circular motion from left to right. Now move
the head backward and slowly bring it erect. When
the head is moved backwards the mouth will fall open
if the jaw is fully relaxed.
To make the mouth fall open more easily, pull it down
gently with the thumb and fingers as if you were
stroking a beard.
Move the jaw around with your thumb and fingers,
from one side to the other, and then back again. Don't
let the jaw resist the movement.
Say the vowel sounds a, e, i, 0, u. The head should be
a bit inclined jorward and the jaw hanging rather
loosely.
Say the sounds 00 and ah in rapid succession till you
get the sound wah.
Say a number of words ending in the sound ah. Let
the jaw fall open and remain relaxed after
pronouncing the sounds: hah, fah, tohah, momah, hohah.
Repeat this exercise as often as you can.
Selections for Practice
A
The following selections have been chosen to improve
diction and voice quality
1.
Lose this day loitering - 'twill be the same story
Tomorrow - and the next more dilatory;
The indecisions bring its own delays,
And days are lost lamenting o'er lost days.
Are you in earnest? seize this very minute -
What you can do, or dream you can, begin it,
Boldness has .genius, power, and magic in it.
Only engage, and then the mind grows heated -
Begin it, and the work will be completed ..
Goethe

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I
pondered; weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume
of forgotten lore -
While I nodded, nearly napping,
suddenly there carne a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping,
rapping at my chamber door.
Tis some visitor," I muttered,
"tapping at my chamber door-
Only this and nothing more."
EDGAR A. POE

Hence! home, you idle creature, get you horne.
Is this a holiday? What! know you not,
Being mechanical, you ought not work
Upon the labouring day without the sign
Of your profession? Speak, what trade art thou?
SHAKESPEARE - Julius Caesar I i.

When the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green;
And every goose a swan, lad,
. And every lass a queen;
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
And round the world away;
Young.blood must have-its course, lad,
And every dog his day.
"
KINGSLEY
I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeams dance
Against my sandy shallows.
I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars,
I loiter round my cresses;
And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
. But I go on forever.
ALFRED TENNYSON
B
Study the following selections and employ the mechanics
of interpretation as you read them. These selections have
been chosen because they provide matter for drilling the
sounds of the language.
1.
I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the blest.
P. B. SHELLEY
2.
As Tommy Snooks and Bessie Brooks
Were walking out one Sunday,
Selections for Practice 115
Says Tommy Snooks to Bessie Brooks,
"Tomorrow will be Monday."
MOTHER GOOSE
3.
A man of words and not of deeds,
Is like a garden full of weeds;
For when the weeds begin to grow,
Then doth the garden overflow.
MOTHER GOOSE
4.
Simple Simon met a pieman,
Going to the fair;
Says Simple Simon to the pieman,
"Let me taste your ware."
Says the pieman unto Simon,
"Show me first your pe~."
Says Simple Simon to the pieman,
"Indeed, I have not any."
MOTHER GOOSE
5.
The gaudy, babbling, and remorseful day
Is crept into the bosom of the sea,
And now loud-howling wolves arouse the jades
That drag the tragic melancholy night

Who with their drowsy, slow, and flagging wings
Clip dead men's graves, and from their misty jaws
Breathe foul contagious darkness in the air.
SHAKESPEARE - King Henry VI
When I was one-and-twenty
I hear a wise man say,
"Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free."
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again
"The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
'Tis paid with sighs aplenty
And sold for endless rue."
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.
A. E. HOUSMAN
7.~
No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell.
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so,
That I in your sweetest thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe,
0, if, I say, you look upon this verse
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not as so much my poor name rehearse
But let your love even with my life decay;
Lest the wise world should look unto your moan
And mock you with me after I am gone.
WILliAM SHAKESPEARE

8.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:-
o no! it is an ever fixed mark
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark;
whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out ev'n to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
WILliAM SHAKESPEARE
9.
Cobbler, cobbler, mend my shoe,
Give it a stitch and that will do;
Here's a nail and there's a prod,
And now my shoe is well shod.
MOTHER GOOSE
10
If cold December gave you birth,
The month of snow, ice and mirth,
Place on your hand a turquoise blue
Success will bless what e'er you do.
AUTHOR UNKNOWN
11
In short, the world is filled with people trying to achieve
success,
And half of them think they'll get it by saying Yes,
And if all the ones who say No said Yes, and vice versa,
such is the fate of humanity, that ninety-nine percent of
them still wouldn't be any better off than they were before.
Which perhaps is just as well because if everybody was a
success nobody could be contemptuous of anybody else and
everybody would start in all over again trying to be a bigger
success than everybody else so they would have somebody
to be contemptuous of and so on forevermore.
Because when people start hitching their wagons to a star,
That's the way they are.
OGDEN NASH
12 ~
Whenever Richard Cory went downtown,
We people on the pavement looked at him;
He W.1S a gentleman from sale to crown,
Clean favoured, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good morning," and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich - yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace;
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.


So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
ROBINSON
C.
The following selections will help you for variety of
expression.
1.

He who knows, and knows he knows, -
He is wise - follow him.
He who knows, and knows not he knows, -
He is asleep - wake him.
He who knows not, and knows not he knows not,-
He is a fool - shun him.
He who knows not, and knows he knows not,-
He is a child _. teach him.
ARABIAN PROVERB
2.~
This selection provides matter for work on proper breathing,
vowel sounds, open and relaxed throat, the consonants 1
and n, as well as general expression. In the last stanza,
. notice how the speed becomes progressively slower.
It was many and many a year ago.
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love -
I and my Annabel Lee.
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven
Went envying her and me-
Yes - that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we -
Of _ many far wiser than we -
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
.:- Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling - my darling - my life and my bride
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
EDGAR A. POE
3.
Read to interpret the following selection; be sure to visualise
the pup's character as you feel his mood and spirit.
She's taught me that I mustn't bark
At little noises after dark,
But just refrain from any fuss -
Until I'm sure they're dangerous.
This would be easier, I've felt
If noises could be seen or smelt.
She's very wise, I have ~o doubt,
And plans ahead what she's about;
Yet after eating, every day,
She throws her nicest bones away.
If she were really less obtuse,
She'd bury them for future use.
But that which makes me doubt the most
Those higher powers that humans boast
'Is not so much a fault like that,