ELEMENTS OF SPEECH

1. INTONATION – the rise and fall of the voice in speaking

Intonation is the melody or music of a language
Intonation refers to the way your voice rises and falls as you speak
Ex: "It's raining, isn't it?
Intonation – the combination of the levels of pitch in every speech or the rising and falling of
pitch
Pitch- pertains to the high or low levels of a sound

2. JUNCTURE - linguistics

a. a pause in speech or
a feature of pronunciation that introduces, accompanies, orreplaces a pause
b. the set of phonological features signalling a division between words, such as those thatdistingui
sh a name from an aim

3. STRESS - This means that one part of a certain word is said louder and longer than other
parts of the same word.

- One syllable receives more emphasis than the others.

Ex: “Dessert is my favorite thing!”

Identifying syllables to understand word stress

A syllable is a unit of pronunciation that has one vowel sound. A word might have one syllable
(like “an” or “can”) or more, such as “po-lice” (two syllables), “com-pa-ny” (three syllables), “ne-
ce-ssa-ry” (four syllables), etc.

Just for fun, do you know the English word with the most syllables?

The answer is “antidisestablishmentarianism.” (The opposition of the belief that there shouldn’t
be an official church in a country.)

The word has 12 syllables!

Remember that syllables aren’t similar to letters. For example, “scratch” has seven letters but
one syllable, while “umami” has five letters but three syllables. Whatever the word, pay attention
to the vowels because one of them will be where you find the stress of a word.

 Produce a longer vowel

 Raise the pitch of the syllable to a higher level
 Say the syllable louder
 Pronounce it with clarity
 Create a more distinctive facial movement
4. RATE OF SPEECH - Rate is Speed of Speaking Measured in Words Per Minute. Rate is how
fast or slow a person speaks. Rate is part of the paralanguage of speech along with loudness
and pitch

I am a professional speaker and podcast host and I speak at approximately 145-160 words per
minute (wpm), while many sources state that average American English speaker engaged in a
friendly conversation speaks at a rate of approximately 110–150 wpm.

5. VOLUME – the ability to control the loudness and softness of your voice that can help keep
audience attention

- Use the volume that depends on the size and shape of the room

To become a better speaker with your “naked” speaking voice, try the following techniques:

 Practice speaking in a large room with a friend who moves farther and farther away from
you until the friend reaches the rear of the room and can still hear you.
 Make sure that you are standing straight and not cramped so you have the maximum
capacity for breathing and forcing air out of the lungs for sound production.
 Practice speaking by thinking of people at different distances to you such as at your
elbow, across the room, or in the back of a large hall.