SPEAKING OF SPEECH

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 671, 16 May 1952, Page 15

SPEAKING OF SPEECH

"N\A OST people have heard at least something of the science of phonetics. Shaw’s Pygmalion has seen to that. How far Shaw’s tongue was in his cheek without being poked right through it is difficult to judge. It is an interesting hypothesis that a Cockney could be trained to pass as a duchess." This is the springboard from which Meredith

H, Money launches himself in three talks entitled, A Manner of Speaking which 3YC _ will broadcast during the coming month. The first will be heard at 8.2 p.m. on Thursday, May 22. Discussing some of the problems which have long interested students of lan-.

guage, Mr. Money says that though modern developments have given us a more exact knowledge of certain sounds and speech processes, it remains impossible to impose a better standard of diction on people whose only concern is to make themselves understood. New Zealand and Australia, he considers, have developed more or, l€ss distinctive accents which are potentially capable of becoming full-scale dialects-a development which is likely to continue. New Zealand speech is discussed from a number of angles, and there are interesting and often provocative comments on subjects such as BBC English, the trials of speech-training, phonetics as a science, and spelling. Some interesting, passages in the last talk explain apparatus used to examine and analyse the individual’s speech. Polio Documentary EW ZEALANDERS, who unfortunately know poliomyelitis all too well, should be more than usually interested in a survey from 1YA at 2.30 p.m. on Sunday, May 25, of the way the disease is being dealt with in Britain. Broadcast last year by the BBC the. documentary programme Polio illustrates such aspects as the disease’s incidence, its symptoms and early treatment and methods of rehabilitating sufferers. At three centres BBC commentators interview members of the staff and patients. Henry Riddell speaks from hospital at Fulham which has special facilities for polio patients and receives many cases for diagnosis; Audrey Russell is at the country annexe of the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital which takes patients for further treatment and for rehabilitation, and Alun Williams reports from the Lantern Hotel at Worthing, run by the Infantile Paralysis Fellowship, which\ helps sufferers to re-establish themselves in everyday life. Polio is introduced by Wynford Vaughan Thomas, who talks over with a medical officer to the Ministry of Health the information that is heard from the three centres.