VOICE AND PRONUNCIATION

Correct pronunciation is important if one is to be understood correctly. Incorrect pronunciation is perhaps the first cause of communication breakdown. If the listener is not accustomed to the speaker’s native language, he/she will not understand a mispronounced word. Mispronunciation also tires the listener’s ear and he/she will perhaps even stop trying to understand the speaker if it becomes too difficult.

What is pronunciation?

There are two important aspects of pronunciation of individual words, word stress and the individual sounds themselves called "phonemes". A suggestion: make sure you know how to correctly pronounce at least the key technical words or words that you repeat over and over again in your speech. Just as in the case of individual words in English a particular syllable receives stress, so do particular words in a sentence. Sentence stress concerns stressing particular words in a sentence usually at regular intervals. English speakers stress words that are important for meaning such as: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, negatives, demonstratives and interrogatives. Unstressed ones include articles, auxiliary verbs, prepositions, and conjunctions.

The voice, or more precisely the qualities of the voice, should be used to its/their fullest. Qualities include loudness, speed (fast or slow), variety, pitch (high or low), silent moments or pauses. The voice is important:

~to indicate importance, meaning;

~to create atmosphere and to avoid sounding monotonous and putting the audience to sleep!