I recently had a conversation with someone with excellent English-speaking skills. She shared with me that although she knew her pronunciation was very good, it was gaining a deeper understanding of intonation that would complete the final stages of her journey in finding her own true voice. I agreed with her assessment and spoke with her about several concepts, including phrasing.
It is certainly a good approach to focus on pronunciation in the beginning of one’s work. As I mentioned in a previous post, clear pronunciation allows us to always be understood when we are speaking slowly and clearly. Also having clear articulation allows us to easily clarify what we are saying if someone doesn’t catch the meaning the first time, and asks us “What?” Even if you’ve practiced certain reduced pronunciations (such as dropping the T in words like “wanted,” “painted,” or “rented”; holding the T in “hot,” “that,” or “not”; or dropping the TH in “months,” or “clothes”) if someone misses what we say, when we repeat the words, we should add extra articulation (i.e. not dropping the sounds described above, but pronouncing them).
Intonation is harder to teach and harder to learn than pronunciation. There are many factors that can influence intonation, including the speaker’s feelings or emotional state. There is also a great range of intonation patterns among speakers. A learner could feel frustrated that intonation is so elusive and that it would be impossible to ever get all the rules “right.” Amore helpful outlook is that there is no “right” in the absolute sense when it comes to intonation. If we can let go of any tendencies towards perfectionism, we can enjoy the process of learning and trying different intonation patterns. In the study of intonation, it might be more useful to think of “guidelines” rather than rigid “rules.”
What are Phrases?
An important advanced concept is PHRASING. Phrases are groups of related words that make up a single idea. Sometimes in learning a second language, we can get into a pattern of pronouncing a single word at a time. This is fine at first, but to get into a good flow of speech that sounds more natural, we want to practice saying (and thinking) a phrase at a time. Most phrases will contain at least one function word and all phrases will contain at least one content word.
Content words are words that contain the meaning of a sentence. They are usually nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Depending on the sentence, other parts of speech can also act as content words.
Function words are necessary to hold the sentence together, but they don’t contain the meaning or the feeling of the sentence. Examples are articles, helping verbs, prepositions, and usually pronouns.
Saying one word at a time tends to give the same amount of stress to each word, giving them all the same value. This makes it hard for the listener to understand the important words in a sentence. For communication that is clear and very enjoyable to listen to, content words should stand out, while function words fade into the background. Think of a photograph with the subject in focus, and the background out of focus. It’s not only easy for the viewer to understand the subject; the contrast also makes the image more beautiful.
Vowel neutralization, also called reduction, is an important concept to understand. Of course, any speech word is similar to any other creative or artistic work in that the intellectual understanding must be incorporated into our body. In speech work this occurs through some form of drilling. Function words are usually de-emphasized by speaking them on a lower pitch, and shortening their vowel lengths (often neutralizing them into a schwa).
Content words are usually emphasized in exactly the opposite way. They are spoken on a higher pitch and the vowel of the stressed syllable of the word is lengthened. It’s important to think of using pitch, rather than volume to stress the word. Any increase in volume should be quite subtle. Focus on using pitch for emphasis. When you lengthen the vowel, let the pitch rise slightly and then drop down. This is called a vowel peak. Implementing it into your speech, if you’re not already doing so, can powerfully transform your communication.
In a previous post I discussed using short sentences as a way of practicing intonation. If you haven’t checked it out, you might find it useful to read before going further into phrasing here.
Building Shorter Sentences (or Phrases) into Longer Sentences
When we get into longer sentences, it’s great to understand that they are really just made up of shorter sentences. Actually, they’re not usually made up of shorter complete sentences, but of phrases. If we are comfortable emphasizing content words (also called key words) and reducing function words when saying shorter sentences, how do we make the transition into longer sentences? The answer is by being aware of your phrases when speaking.
Remember that this, like all learning, is a process. If practicing shorter sentences is still new to you, take it slowly. Stick with shorter sentences, and then, when you’re ready you can practice some moderate length sentences. Once you have built a solid foundation, increasing the length of sentences will be easy.
Many English sentences are organized in a standard order: subject-verb-object.
Think of any simple three-word sentence that follows this order.
Let’s look at this example:
Sue likes coffee.
For clarity, I might put the subject, verb, and object in brackets:
[Sue] [likes] [coffee].
Now experiment with changing the form of one of these parts of speech, by expanding it.
[Sue] [would like] [coffee].
If we were just looking at stress and reduction, we might practice this sentence rhythmically by saying:
[DA] [d-DA] [ DA-d].
But to move into longer sentences, we want to also think of the phrases. At this stage we might consciously think of our exact phrases. In time, phrasing should become subconscious.
[Sue] [would like] [coffee].
Now, let’s expand the object of the sentence into a phrase:
[Sue] [would like] [a cup of coffee].
If you have previously drilled phrases with the words “would,” “a,” and “of,” you can probably let your subconscious take care of the reduction. Focus your attention on communicating these three phrases. They are groups of words, but they each represent a single idea.
Now let’s expand the subject of the sentence. Maybe Sue is the president of the company.
[The president of the company] [would like] [a cup of coffee].
How does it feel to say the above sentence? Are you able to say it while thinking of it as three phrases? Or is it too much? That’s okay if it is!
Economy of Breath
As you build the sentences up with longer phrases, you may get to your breaking point. Remember, you want to say “the president of the company” with about the same amount of mental energy and breath as you would say “Sue.”
It’s worth taking a moment to consider a few details before moving on.
Are you thinking a word at a time?
Are using too much breath to say these phrases?
Let’s take a moment just to focus on that. We’re going to alternate between two similar sentences.
See if you can make (1) the mental energy and (2) the amount of breath for the shorter phrase and the longer phrase the same.
We’ll start with an even simpler sentence, just to isolate the one thing we’re targeting:
[It’s] [Sue].
You just said two words, probably with very little effort. Now we’re going to expand “Sue” into a phrase, but we want to keep the feeling the same. Let’s take on the imaginary circumstances so this feels like real life and not just an exercise: You know Sue. You know she’s the president. It took very little breath or effort to say “It’s Sue.” Can you use about the same amount of breath, and the same mental energy to say the next sentence? Try it.
[It’s] [the president of the company].
How did that feel? If it felt relaxed, natural, and surprisingly effortless, you may have noticed that you had breath support when you said the longer phrase. Your abdomen might have been a little firm, as if you were slightly holding your breath. This breath support comes when we are focused on an idea, and we say many words on an economy of breath. This is good to observe for a moment, but not something to over-think. Let this happen naturally. Don’t misinterpret this feeling. Our goal is never to “hold our breath.”
Practice with Short and Long Form Sentences
Try this with other phrases. As you did with the sentence “It’s the president of the company,” you can alternate between the short form of a sentence and then an expanded form. Don’t work more quickly than seems natural for you. Remember you are trying to change the reflexes. You are looking to speak with new patterns and incorporate them through muscle memory. A slower methodical approach usually works best. We’ve already talked about three-phrase sentences, but you might find drilling sentences with two phrases is a good place to begin.
Try some of these or work out some of your own. Find sentences in articles or books. Are you going to give a speech and you have a long sentence? For speeches, shorter or moderate-length sentences are often better than very long ones. They are easier for the speaker to deliver and easier for the audience to understand. But sometimes we have a long sentence that can’t be made any shorter. Try putting brackets (or parentheses) around the phrases. Does that change the way you look at it? It’s usually much easier to say 4 phrases than 20 words, for example. If you are clear of the phrases you are communicating, your audience will be clear as well.
Two phrases:
[Have] [one].
[Have] [a piece of cake].
[John] [works].
[John] [is going to be working].
Three phrases:
[Dana] [met] [Tracey].
[My next-door neighbor] [was going to meet] [the owner].
If you start with short sentences and build longer ones, allow yourself the freedom to change the meaning a little bit, but still keep the phrases contained in your mind when you are communicating them one at a time. In our first example of “Sue likes coffee,” we expanded the verb into “would like.” We could also experiment with many other verbs phrases: “was thinking of having,” “was about to order,” “is going to have,” etc.
Now that phrasing has been brought to your attention, see how much you notice it in your daily life. How much are you already using? How does it feel to think of phrasing in your own speech? What do you notice when other are speaking. Please share any observations or insights below!