Pronunciation and Intonation in Public Speaking

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Pronunciation and Intonation in Public Speaking 1201班 2012221103100053 张可钰 When we are listening to others, we will have ether of the two feelings, interested or uninterested. For the first feeling, we show great enthusiasm and positive attitude to the speaker, which in turns will inspire the speaker. He will be more excited and express his points more inspiring. But for the second feeling, we show great disappointment and negative attitude to the speaker, which of course will also affect the speaker’s behavior. His speech will be more boring and it will be suffering for us to listen to him. Why will we have so different two feelings sometimes even to the speech of the same contents? I think the answer of the question lies in the pronunciation and intonation. Pronunciation and intonation are just like the color of a painting. What an atmosphere the painting will present to us just depends on the color. Based on the same theory, what a feeling a speech will give us depends on the pronunciation and intonation. Pronunciation is very important in public speaking. At first, people from different places will have different accents. For example, when a man from Japan or India gives an English speech, it will be very difficult for other people to understand them except Japanese or Indians, for their language is greatly influenced by their mother tongue and they have strong accents. So many people in the audiences will not be familiar with the speaker’s type of accent. If the audiences can not understand what the speaker is saying, the presentation can not be successful. In addition, some of the speakers do not have the right pronunciation. What should be emphasized is that having a right pronunciation in public speaking is probably more critical than in any other situation. In other situations your probably does not seem very important to your companions for that if they don't understand you they can simply ask you. But in a public speaking, there will be people from different places with many accents and they can not ask you questions during the main part of your speech. So if the speaker can not pronounce the key words of the speech correctly, the audiences may mistake the original words for other words. Thus the audience may misunderstand the speaker’s meaning or can not understand the speaker. The result may be that the audiences will not be able to follow the speaker’s presentation. Pronouncing words correctly is fundamental. If the speaker want others listen to him, at least he has to make himself understood by others. He should try to change his accent. It is not to be totally standard as the accent exists everywhere. But it should be clean and clear so the audiences can know what the speaker is saying. And for the correct pronunciation, it depends on the full preparation of the speaker. He should make sure how the words should be pronounced before the speech and practice more. Intonation is also very important in public speaking. If we only want a speech with good speech draft, fluent and good pronunciation, we need not a man to give a speech, for the development of technology gives us robots that can just perfectly finish the task. But public speaking is not just repeating the contents of a speech draft. It is not just giving a perfect repetition of these words. It is to communicate the speaker’s ideas and feelings. And I do not think the speaker’s ideas and feelings could be presented to the audiences with just a kind of flat intonation. Intonation is variation of spoken pitch, which is not used to distinguish words; instead it is used for a range of functions such as indicating the attitudes and emotions of the speaker, signaling the difference between statements and questions, and between different types of question, focusing attention on important elements of the spoken message. And just these functions of the intonation are what the public speaking need. If the speaker gives the speech in a very slow intonation, it creates a sad or serious atmosphere, which will of course inspire the audiences and quickly bring them into the speaker’s speech; if the speaker gives the speech in a very cheerful and light-hearted intonation which also gives the audiences a cheerful feeling. And when the speaker gives different intonations to the questions, it will make the audiences aware of the question and then lead them to think about it. When the speaker wants to emphasis some important information of the speech, he can just change his intonation, giving it the pitch. Then the audiences’ attention will be attached to it and they will know this is just the key point. Letting the audiences to experience the emotion the speaker wants to convey, letting the audiences to think about the questions put forward by the speaker and letting the audiences to find the key points of the speech are enough to express the whole meaning of the speech to the audiences. All these functions of the intonation contribute to a complete speech. What contributes to Obama’s success? Someone says it is partly because his wonderful speech. And what contributes to his wonderful speech? I think it is partly because his wonderful intonation. He uses his changing intonation to indict his changing emotion, cheerful, humorous, serious, intimate and firm. And this is what tightly attracts the audience. During his speech, he at first said hello enthusiastically to Chicago people:” Hello, Chicago!” His intonation told the Chicago people that he liked the Chicago people. So he was welcomed by Chicago. When he talked about his family, he used a very warm and pleasant intonation. This made the voters feel Obama’s deep love for his family and also made the voters believe that he will also love the whole country. This is just the magic of intonation. It has the convincing power. Just as variety is the spice of life, so is it the spice of public speaking. A flat, listless, unchanging intonation is just as deadly to speechmaking as a flat, listless, unchanging routine is to daily life. Changing intonation gives the speech draft life. The speech draft does no longer consist of pale words. It becomes different. It is a wonderful work of art. Pronunciation and intonation are both important in public speaking. They make our story more moving; they make our persuasion more convincing; they make our information more impressive. When the speaker stands in front of people, giving the speech, he is just the center. Then he uses his wonderful pronunciation and intonation communicates his ideas and feelings, like the sunshine raying the audiences. What a speaker should remember is that he is not a robot, not to just repeat the speech draft, he should emphasis what is important, express his emotions. Pronunciation and