270 13.3 Delivering Your Speech
volume by increasing airflow from your lungs through your voice box. If you
put your hands on the hollow in the center of your ribcage and say, “Ho-ho-ho,”
you will feel your muscles contracting and the air being forced out of your lungs.
Breathing from your diaphragm—that is, consciously expanding and contracting
your abdomen as you breathe in and out, rather than merely expanding your
chest as air flows into your lungs—can increase the volume of sound as well as
enhance the quality of your voice.ArtIculAtIoN The process of producing speech sounds clearly and dis-
tinctly is articulation. In addition to speaking loudly enough, you need to say
your words clearly, so that your audience can understand them. Without distinct
enunciation, or articulation of the sounds that make up words, your listeners
may not understand you or may fault you for simply not knowing how to speak
clearly and fluently. Here are some commonly misarticulated words:^27
Dint instead of didn’t
Lemme instead of let me
Mornin instead of morning
Seeya instead of see youSoun instead of sound
Wanna instead of want to
Wep instead of wept
Whadayado instead of what do you doMany errors in articulation result from simple laziness. It takes more ef-
fort to articulate speech sounds clearly. Sometimes we are in a hurry to express
our ideas, but more often we simply get into the habit of mumbling, slurring,
and abbreviating. Such speech flaws might not keep your audience from un-
derstanding you, but poor enunciation does reflect on your credibility as a
speaker.
The best way to improve your articulation of sounds is first to identify
words or phrases that you have a tendency to slur or chop. Once you have iden-
tified them, practice saying the words correctly. Make sure you can hear the dif-
ference between the improper and proper pronunciations. A speech teacher can
help you to check your articulation.dIAlect Most newscasters in North America use what is called standard
American pronunciation and do not typically have a strong dialect. A dialect is
a consistent style of pronouncing words that is common to an ethnic group or a
geographic region such as the South, New England, or the upper Midwest. In
the southern part of the United States, people prolong some vowel sounds when
they speak. And in the northern Midwest, the word about sometimes sounds like
“aboat.” In the previous century, it took a bit of adjustment for many Americans
to get used to President John Kennedy’s Bostonian pronunciation of Cuba as
“Cuber” and Harvard as “Haaavahd.” Lyndon Johnson’s Texas twang was a
sharp contrast to Kennedy’s New England sound. George W. Bush’s Texas lilt
contrasted with the slight southern drawl of his predecessor, Bill Clinton. Al-
though President Obama has less of an identifiable dialect than either Clinton or
Bush did, he sometimes clips the ends of his words.