Voice and Accent Basics

1. Effective Communication
Through the art of
phonetics

2. What are we going to learn ???
By the end of the session you’ll be able to…
Define Accent.
State the elements of Speech Sounds.
Identify your own communication style.
Demonstrate effectiveness of using a neutral accent.
Explain the benefits of sentence and word stress.
Identify the right intonation pattern
Demonstrate effective communication with an Accent.

3. Objective…
To the learn the art of Effective
Communication using phonetics…
 There are four key components to make
learning effective…
 Participate
 Pay attention
 Prepare
 Practise

4. Activity…

5. What is the importance of
using an Accent?...

6. Let’s take an example…
Your Opinion…

7. What is a comprehensible
Accent…?
A combination of three main components:
Intonation (Speech Music)
Liaisons(Word Connection)
and
Pronunciation (the spoken sounds of Vowels,
Consonants and Combinations)
Example: Would you like some brown bread and butter?
Wouldju like somebraumbreadnbutter?

8. English Speech Sounds …
All the sounds produced in English are typically
classified into consonants and vowels.
English alphabet (26): Consonants- 21
Vowels-5
Phonetically speaking the number of sounds required to
speak with Received Pronunciation requires 44
sounds
Consonants: 24
Vowels: 20

9. Consonant Sounds
Plosives
Aspirated Sounds:
/p/: Pot, Peter, Department, Perfect
/t/: Talk, Time , distinct, Turn
/k/: Kitten, Cot, hacker, Calling, honk
/b/: Baker, Boston, tub, bark, Basket
/d/: Develop,Pardon, Discover, Demolish
/g/: Glorified, Gaggle,Mug, Garments

10. Fricatives
/f/: Graph, Cough, Fan, Leaf
/v/: Dove, Victor,Divine
/θ/: thin, thought, bath, anything
/δ/: the,father,mother
/∫/: sugar,shrimp,shove,hush
/Э/: pleasure,measure,treasure
/h/ hungry,hot
/s/ some,Susie,sorted
/z/: please,zip,scissors

11. Affricates:
/t∫/: Church, chip, chuck, chair
/dЭ/: John, jump,jungle, jockey
Nasals
/m/: Mat, mother, mum
/n/: Nap,naughty,naughty
/ŋ/: Nothing,something,king,ring

12. Laterals
/l/:Love, language
Semi Vowels
/j/: your, yak
/w/: Water, wine
/r/: Rip, roar, terror
For Consonants, there is a three-term description:
Voiced/Voiceless, place of articulation, and manner of
articulation

13. Let’s play the /v/ & /w/ game
Viper Wiper
Veil Whale
Via Wire
Vine Wine
Vent Went

14. Short Vowels
/∂ /: attention, another
/∧ /: Butter, shut, money
/æ/: Hammer, apple
/ɪ /: English, Wilson
/Ɔ /: offer, potter
/u/: good, put, foot
/e/: Bed, twelve, net

15. Long Vowels
/i:/: eat, senior
/3:/: shirt, bird
/Ɔ :/: origin, four
/u:/: Moon, Fool
/a:/ : Farmer, aunty, arm

16. Diphthongs
/eɪ /: Gate, make,wait,vain
/aɪ /: Like,fine,kind,bright,guide
/Ɔɪ /: boy,toy,ploy,oil
/au/: Cow,plough,crouch
/∂ u/: Toad,ghost,moan, post code
/ɪ ∂ /: Ear,fierce,fear,hear
/u∂/ : Fewer, cure
/e∂ /: Tear,careful,scare

17. Pronunciation Checker
 Executive  However
 Would  Verify
 Apologize  Convenient
 First  Free phone
 Application  Issue
 Yellow  Temporary
 Authorization  Government
 Development  Schedule

18. Use your Voice……
“..There’s an Elephant walking down the
street. He’s carrying Betty, Emma® and
Lisa along with two(w)others
on his back. I think they may be part of the
Circus that came to town…”

19. Use your Voice……
 Repeat aloud using one of the following voice
characteristics. (One at a time)…
 Very Excited
 Frightened
 Like a gangster
 With a very Old Man/Lady’s voice
 Like a radio Announcer

20. Syllable Stress
 The syllable is the unit of rhythm.
 It tell us about the number of beats in a word
We have 4 types:
 Monosyllabic (run, in, out)
 Bi-syllabic (heavy, auto, lancer)
 Tri-syllabic (Infosys, intellect, consonant)
 Polysyllabic (examination, alteration,
extinguisher

21. Stress cont…
Stressing is the process of emphasising certain
syllables in a word.
Accordingly we have 3 types:
 Initial (stress the first syllable) e.g. ‘heaven
 Medial (stress the second syllable)
 (stress the last syllable) e.g. warren’tee

22. Syllable Stress
Example…
 Photograph
 Executive
 However
 Theatre
 Particular
 Content
 Laboratory
 Informative

23. Intonation
The music of the language

24. Statements
I’m John.
You’re next.
It’s raining.
She lost the race.
It costs 10 pounds 50.

25. Questions
Are you going there tomorrow?
Where are you going?
Exclamations/Observations
Aren’t you here yet?!
I don’t like carrots!
He’s here!

26. Use your Voice……
 Read the following aloud, emphasising the
word in BOLD each time…
 I like it when you sing
 I like it when you sing
 I like it when you sing
 I like it when you sing

27. Passage Reading

28. THE RAINBOW PASSAGE
When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air,
they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The
rainbow is a division of white light into many
beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long
round arch, with its path high above, and its two
ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is ,
according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one
end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When
a man looks for something beyond his reach, his
friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at
the end of the rainbow.

29. Luke…
Luke and Jack were close pals. Luke would lock
the liquor in the locker room, which quite
irked Jack. So to get back at Luke, Jack
closed his ducks in a dark room. When Luke
got to know about this, he went to Zachary, to
complain. Zachary was cool, and a calm person,
but Zachary concluded by saying that Jack is
right. When Zachary cascaded the sequence
of his conversation with Luke to Jack,
Zachary and Jack decided to teach Luke a
lesson. They locked Luke with his ducks in the
dark, closed room, and drank his liquor, sitting
on his sofa, the whole night.

30. Communication hitch...
 Sentence shaping/Pitch raise…
 Refers to the movement in pitch across a sentence. If the
pitch goes up at the end of a sentence, mistrust and
uncertainty are created in the listener. This often results in
sounding as though a question is being asked.
 Energy Drop
 Energy and enthusiasm slumps when ending sentences.
 Speeding
 Talking too quickly, creating an impression of nervousness,
irritation or even dishonesty.
 Braking
 Punctuating sentences with inappropriate pauses, creating
impression of uncertainty and even irritation.
 Content Dilution
 Meaning someone who waffles or uses mitigation, neutral and
unnecessary words unconsciously.
 Word Drag
 Over-elongates the vowel sound of a word.

31. What have you learnt?????
You should now be able to……
 Define Accent.
 State the elements of British Speech Sounds.
 Identify your own communication style.
 Demonstrate effectiveness of using a neutral accent.
 Explain the benefits of sentence and word stress.
 Identify the right intonation pattern
 Demonstrate effective communication with an Accent.