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New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 425, 15 August 1947, Page 5

Sir,-With reference to the recent articles on "Spoken English," by Mr. Fairburn and Miss. Marsh, the following quotation may be of interest. It is lifted from a provocative article by Montagu Slater entitled "How Shall We Bring Up Our Actors, and for What Theatre?" which appeared in Theatre To-day, an English publication. A special complaint made of "both R.A.D.A. and the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art (which used to be Fogerty’s) is that they produce a special and very limiting speech. The speech training is sound, but the ultimate criterion in practice appears to be social as much as artistic; the voice must be well-bred, a notion which imposes a serious limitation on the actor’s range and value, The resulting voice has more than once been accused of strangling drama and hindering filth: it has become difficult, it is said, to cast an ordinary person in afy play, and comment is made on the welcome vitality and truth of voices trained elsewhere. My quotation is from an early draft of a considered report now in preparation. Slater then goes on to say that there is an influx of new voices which he traces to theatres like Unity London and Unity Glasgow, and to the documentary film. : The influx is valuable and refreshing. ++. . 1 am sure that if the Old Vie school recruits a player with an accent, as from time to time it will, there.will be no attempt to take the man’s accent away and replace it by a synthetic speech like that which Professor Lloyd James invented for BBC announcers.

The inference from this article is that it would bé a bad thing to graft standard middle-class English speech on to a New Zealander, but, like Miss Marsh, I can scarcely agree. What puzzles me, however, is where speech faults end and an "accent" begins. Have New Zealanders an "accent" or do they just speak badly? If the latter, will these faults eventually crystallise into another variation of English, surely the most mutilated language in the world? Although I am aware of the many complex factors involved, it appears to me that age can sometimes turn bastard speech faults into legitimate accents.

FRANK

PONTON

(Wellington).

Sir,-Many years have passed since the late Mr. Baeyertz, in the Triad, publicly indicted and executed mur. derers of the King’s English. Opporttunely Mr. Fairburn takes up the prosecution and Miss Marsh is fortunately at hand to sheet home the crithe. As Mr. Fairburn suggests, attention must

first be directed to the children; and, incidentally, what of the little ones who ate suffered to come to the microphone from far and near on late afternoons to make those awful noises in the name of speech? Do their parents and teachers understand what they say? I think the

impact of cacophonous American radio tecordings and inferior sound films is vety baneful to young ears, but the deterioration set in long before these pestg were introduced. Over 40 years ago ny father objected that when he asked for a ticket to "town" the conductor invariably enquired whether he meant "teown," and when in desperation the word "City" was ‘tried, the conductor would declare his preference for "cit-ee"’; finally "Queen Street" was considerately allowed to pass without correction. We are notoriously lazy linguists, and not above laughing at the foreigner’s mistakes even when his treatment of vowels and consonants is superior to our own. Laziness is also at the root of our "yeah" class of speakers. Well, I hope our educational authorities will do somes thing. Surely so important a matter will not be forever excluded from the school curriculum, The art of reading aloud, under the guidance of a-capable teacher, would be of inestimable value. Diagrams of throat, tongue and. lip formation would no doubt be used in a well worked out system. I believe the singing as well as the speaking voice would benefit tremendously by such training. While vowel trouble is very prevalent, consonantal sickness is also fairly widespread. Writing of the im erfection of most singers, Mr. Dyneley Hussey in The Listener (London) of February 13, 1947, stated: "One fault is in the pronunciation of their consonants ... . none of them make their consonants clearly audible or used them as they should be used, to give leverage to the phrasing ... . the production of 4 series of beautiful vowel-sounds without strong connecting consonantal links is not the sole requisite for a good singer." We are much indebted to Mr. Fairburn and others for bringing forward this matter, and I hope some ‘good Will result from the discussion. There bie a recent controversy on "Corruption of Taste." Is there a flame discernible anywhere, do you think, as the result of the sparks then kindled?"

JOHN

TOLE

(Auckland).

More letters from listeners will be found on pages 28 and 29

LETTERS FROM LISTENERS

(continued from page 5).