Speech is one of the ways humans communicate among themselves. It is an essential tool of modern living.
By age 3 a child will speak fluently, but does this mean that later on he will be able to express himself well?
Not necessarily.
A child’s development is often conditioned by his environment. If not exposed early to proper enunciation and diction he might settle for a minimalist way of communicating.
By doing this, he will do himself a big disservice.
More often than not, people are judged (and discriminated) by the way they speak.
A bad diction will subtly disqualify you from many lucrative positions and relegate you to the lower echelons of society.
An old French song says:
When a soldier leaves for war
He carries in his backpack a potential field marshal baton
Similarly, when a child embarks upon life’s big adventure he has in his mouth the tool of success. His tongue.
It is up to him to make good use of it.
Many adults are speech deficient and it is obvious in many movies and television offerings.
Actors very often don’t enunciate properly. They mutter, they mumble, they grunt.
They pretend to use a “realistic” way of speaking, but the truth is that they have a bad enunciation and couldn’t articulate properly if their lives depended on it.
This is why when watching a movie, whenever I can, I turn the subtitles on.
Oh, that’s what he meant…
When it comes to enunciation, my favorite newscaster is Scott Pelley, the anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News.
He speaks slowly and clearly, and his broadcasting is music to my ears.
Parents often pay more attention to their children’s teeth than their vocabulary and this might be a bad miscalculation.
Straight teeth won’t pave the way to a successful career, but a good elocution might.
Children should be made aware early that the surest way to success is good grooming, fresh breath and a good pronunciation.
Alain
