ASSIGNMENTS 1. Prepare to give a two-minute talk before the class on the following topics: (a) A Statement of the Origin of Speech. (b) "Speech Is Always Learned." (c) How a Child Adds New Words and Tones. (d) The Place of Imitation in Learning to Speak. (e) Good Models of Speaking I Have Heard. (f) Mental Condition and the Mechanism of Speech. (i) "Man Thinks Because He Speaks." (j) Speech Learning for Babies, Children, Adolescents, Adults. 2. Write out for your own benefit a statement of the conditions under which you learned to speak, as best you know them. Make a frank list of the detrimental influences that affected your speech in the learning. 3. Describe the efforts of a child you know in learning to speak; show how imitation entered into its learning how; trial and error; effects of success; its attempts to master words and tones that it heard others using. APPENDIX B THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE IN SPEAKING AND WRITING 1 IN TEXTBOOKS the subjects of speaking and writing are commonly treated as though they were about the same thing; not quite, but almost. Especially where they obviously overlap, in the matter of thought content and rhetorical structure, they are left undifferentiated. Little has ever been written of their differences; much has been implied of their likenesses, more than the facts warrant. The reason for this is rather apparent-textbooks are written, not spoken. They are compiled by writers, reflecting the attitudes of writers, most of whom have had no special training in speaking and who are unfamiliar with the problems of the speaker. Many of these writing men would probably grade pretty low on the public platform or in animated conversation. Some even count it a glory that they shun the madding crowd and the press of public places. So it is not to be wondered that they confound issues as to speaking and writing; to them such issues do not exist. So if they make the very common mistake of fixing on theories that defend their own limitations and shortcomings-as who does not?their confusion in theory merely reflects their confusion in practice. But changing times are bringing changing ideals. know now that speaking and writing are not the same. recognize differences, definite, significant, even crucial. These differences it will pay to look into. 1 Adapted from an article in the Quarterly Journal of Speech Education; Vol. VIII, No. 3, June, 1922; pp. 271-285. WRITING AND SPEAKING COMPARED A. Writing includes three clear-cut processes: 1. Thought: analyzable into perceptions, ideas, images, concepts, facts, knowledge, belief, judgment, imagination, fancy, attitudes, purposes, intentions. 2. Language: the use of words and sentences, grammar, syntax, composition, rhetoric. 3. Typography: either handwriting or the printed page. B. Speaking is composed of four processes: 1. Thought: as in writing. 2. Language: as in writing plus phonology, articulation, pronunciation. 3. Voice: articulation and pronunciation; quality, force, time, pitch, expression, interpretation. 4. Action: bodily set, posture, manner, mood, emotional tone, movement, gesture. Clearly, the two processes overlap. Both exist to carry thought by means of language; they differ, however, and most radically, in the medium of conveyance. DIFFERENCES Yet is this difference in the mode of physical transmission, obvious as it is and immensely significant, all the difference there is? Clearly not. Thought for writing is conceived in a spirit quite different from thought for speaking. Language for writing is not by far the language for speaking. If this be true, then, from thought on down to the bodily means of expression, the two subjects differ in all particulars. Print as against the voice-body machinery is a difference most obvious in nature, but how great in degree? The answer is, they differ by a gap so wide that not to appreciate the full extent of it is to risk erring egregiously. A word done in black marks on the printed page must mean one thing only; if it means more, the page either falsifies or beclouds. Also it must mean this one thing yesterday, today, and for a long time. When expressed by the voice in speaking, however, it may mean any single thing the speaker has skill to make it signify. The word "Go" as light-waves from the page-writing-must have only one meaning; in sound-waves from the voice it can be given twenty meanings -and more. A sentence in writing is also limited to one meaning; but in speaking, the same combination of words can be given meanings multiplied many times over. All this can be achieved by voice alone. Consider how the distance between speaking and writing is increased when to the use of voice is added action. The voice can multiply meanings for a word spoken; the body can multiply meanings without words of any kind; the two together, voice and body, work wonders. In everyday affairs men gather convictions more clearly from what they see than from what they hear or read. Hear a man say something for which you are not quite prepared, and you turn sharply to get the words more clearly? to catch the inflection of his voice more distinctly? Seldom; rather, to look him in the eye or to see how he carries his face and body. Watch his body and study his face and you can largely ignore his voice and words. Actions still speak louder than words; more, they speak at all times, knowing no silences. VOICE OVERSHADOWS LANGUAGE The result is that when voice and action are in agreement, language that contradicts then counts surprisingly little. Its printed-page meaning can be (1) diverted, (2) obscured, and even (3) reversed. The uttering of "Go" can be diverted to mean, "Do what you please about going or staying"; or obscured into "Both go and stay," the voice saying "Leave" but the body saying "Stay where you are"; or else reversed completely to mean "Stay," where voice and body agree on this meaning in defiance of the page meaning of the word. A fair inspection of these relative values shows that in speech. the choice of words is surprisingly subordinate to the behavior of voice and to the total bodily set. What we call "parliamentary language" is the kind that appears correct on paper, conforming to certain printed-page requirements; yet uttered in speech it may entail any insult or breach of taste and etiquette injected by the tone of voice. Libel and slander are made up of words and statements which on paper overstep a certain conventional line of respect and propriety, yet which when uttered in speech can be entirely stripped of offensive meaning. Instance the ribald and obscene chaffing found in barracks, lodging houses, and camps, where men tolerate any language and words, providing the tone of voice and the facial expression are amiable and sympathetic. Owen Wister's Virginian challenges the defamatory words of his enemy, Trampas, by putting his hand to his pistol and saying, "When you call me that, smile!" According to the cowboy code even the vilest of language was all right when uttered with a smile; without it, all wrong. Yet the words were the same. If now we add to this the fact that the printed page gets almost no meaning except as it sets up voice processes, the value of words as such shrinks still more. One cannot read -in silent reading-without subvocal speech. Reading is always an act of speaking without audible sounds. It entails elaborate tension and activity of the whole voice mechanism. In the less skillful this can be readily observed by watching their lips-in children and in those who read but little. Others more experienced cover the exterior and put the speech activities back out of sight. So when good rhetoric requires that the printed page have only one meaning, it is in reality demanding that the printed page shall lead the reader to use a certain one of the many subvocal twists that a word or sentence can be given by the voice mechanism. What power the printed page has-as words-it owes to the mechanism of voice. As a thing in itself it is only black marks; its meaning is a matter of what these black marks do to the mechanism of the voice. VOICE AND ACTION So it would seem that the educator who once proclaimed that voice and action did not seem to him very important as a matter of study and discipline, being merely on a par with typography and handwriting, left some exceedingly pertinent factors out of account. They are about as equal in importance as black ink and human character! |