Vickipedia

READING AND SPEAKING. Reading is the delivery of language from writing; speaking is the utterance of spontaneous composition. Reading is merely mechanical when words are intelligibly but unimpressively delivered; and it is oratorial in effect when the sentiment proper to the utterance is expressed by pauses, tones, emphasis, &c. Recitation from memory is another form of reading, the matter being delivered from a mental transcript. This mode is highly favorable to oratorical effect, but it is limited in application, and untrustworthy where exactness of phraseology is important. Speaking from spontaneous composition is the highest form of oratory. The qualities requisite for these are very different.

To read well involves a perfect understanding of the construction of sentences, and ability to analyse complex forms of composition, and discriminate between essential and expletive words; it also involves a nice perception of the qualities of modulation, and their relation to expressiveness, together with ability to regulate the voice so as exactly to suit the sound to the sense. The study of the art of reading is thus valuable as a means of improvement in composition, as well as for its influence in refining the taste, and exercising all the faculties of perception, expression, and adaptation.

In good reading, the thoughts of the writer must first be taken into the reader’s mind, and then delivered as the writer himself might have uttered them immediately on their conception. Children, when set to read language above their comprehension, are of necessity merely mechanical readers; and in this way they acquire habits of unintelligent reading, which are seldom perfectly thrown off in after-life. In silent reading, or the perusal of language for our own information, we gather the sense as we proceed, and correct misapprehensions by reflection; in reading aloud for the information of others, we must perfectly comprehend the matter before we utter it, so as to avoid misleading the hearer. A practised reader can, no doubt, exercise sufficient prevision at the time of reading, by keeping his eye in advance of his utterance, to read any ordinary composition fairly at first, sight; but for public reading this would be insufficient. Whatever is to be read in public should first be well studied in private. The reader thus knowing definitely what he has to express, will give forth no uncertain sounds, and his manner will have the freedom of memoriter delivery, without the disadvantage of its constraint upon the mind. His whole attention will be concentrated on the object of his reading, the effective conveyance of the-matter and spirit of the composition. The presence of the book before him will be necessary chiefly to give confidence, and prevent the possibility of rambling. The eye. assisted by memory, will take in clauses and even sentences at a glance, so that it may be freely raised during utterance.

If the eye of a reader is fixed on the book, be seems to be perusing it for his own information; but if he looks his hearers in the face, as, with due preparation, he should be able to do, his delivery may have all the qualities of spontaneous oratory, and be to the hearers speaking rather than reading. This effectiveness is rarely exemplified, because the requirements for public reading are so little understood, and so habitually neglected in our systems of education. The tameness, monotony, and rythmical singsong so generally associated with reading, have created a prejudice against the use of ‘paper’ in pulpit addresses, in consequence of which, in some churches, the practice of reading sermons is discountenanced, while in others it is positively interdicted. The quality of sermons, as compositions, is seriously impaired under such circumstances; but the cure for bad reading—against which the prejudice is directed—is good reading. All men cannot be orators, but all maybe taught to read oratorically; and were students systematically trained in this art, the services of the church would be rendered far more attractive and influential. In the absence of this training, preachers are the most ineffective of public speakers; and discourses prepared to be delivered from memory are among the meanest species of literary compositions.

The chief points of difference between ordinary reading and the utterance of spontaneous composition, are the uniform force and time, and continuative tones of the former, as contrasted with the reflective breaks and varying modulations and emphases of the latter. The speaker feels what he wishes to say, and he conveys with definiteness the felt relation of each word to the idea which is dominant in his mind. Expletive and explanatory phrases are given parenthetically; ellipses, interpolations between grammatically related words, similes, quotations, and all other elements of rhetorical style, are indicated by changes of modulation; and the point of every sentence is made unmistakably apparent. The reader sees all the parts of a sentence level to his eye, and he is apt to deliver them with a corresponding indiscriminativeness of manner; either without variety of time, tone, and stress, or with mere alternation of force and feebleness, or the equal indefiniteness of emphasis on every phrase.

The first requisite for effective reading is a clear conception of the author’s intention, together with such a command of the voice as may enable the reader to express that one meaning to the exclusion of all other possible meanings. For every cluster of words is like a many-sided crystal, which may be made to throw light from any of its facets, according as one or another of them is present uppermost. The most prominent word in the utterance of a sentence is not necessarily the most important grammatical word, but that which is new in reference to the context; and such words as are already before the mind—whether directly stated, inferentially included in former expressions, or otherwise implied—are pronounced with subordinateness of manner. Thus, in the following lines:

 

The quality of mercy is not strained,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed:

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

 

If the first line were read independently, it would be emphasized as follows:

 

The quality of mercy | is not strained;

 

but if read in connection with the preceding context, the emphasis would be different. Thus:

 

Portia. Then must the Jew have mercy.

Shylock. On what compulsion must I ? Tell me that.

 

‘ Mercy’ and the ‘ compulsion ‘ of mercy being thus already before the mind, the chief point in Portia’s reply will now be:

 

The quality of mercy is not strained, It droppeth, &c.

 

But, as to ‘drop’ is the natural characteristic of ‘rain,’ and as rain always falls ‘ from heaven,’ and necessarily ‘ upon the place beneath,’ these implied words will be pronounced subordinately, thus:

 

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath.

 

Bearing in mind, further, that mercy is of necessity ‘ blessed,’ the reader will proceed:

 

It is twice blessed :

 

and as the object of the speech is to solicit mercy, he will give prominence to the word that advances the suit. Thus:

 

It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.

 

On this principle, the reader shows that he has, in his own mind, performed the writer’s process of thought, and so made the language which he interprets virtually his own. But in order to express with definiteness the thoughts and sentiments thus adopted, the reader must have the instrument of expressiveness perfectly under control. His voice should have no more predisposition to any particular tune than the flute or violin of a musician. Tones have an inherent value, which is above and independent of language, so that assertive construction may be made to convey interrogative meaning, and interrogative language may have assertive or imperative force. The modulations of the voice unravel all the complexities of composition, separating words from their immediate context, or connecting them with others from which they are most widely separated in the sentence. Thus, in the following lines:

 

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory,

 

the clause ‘ fresh and gory,’ is, by relative modulation, shown to refer to ‘him’ in the preceding line, and not to the nearer words ‘fame’ or ‘field.’ So, also, in the following passage: ‘ And they came with haste, and found Joseph and Mary, and the babe lying in a manger.’ Here the series,’ Joseph and Mary |and the babe’ is divided by a modulation of the voice, so as to show that the last word ‘babe’ is alone the grammatical antecedent to the clause ‘ lying in a manger.’ From such illustrations it will be obvious that good reading involves close thinking, and that the governing qualities of tone demand accurate appreciation and careful culture.

The tones of the speaking voice are all more or less inflected, in which respect they differ essentially from singing tones, which are level, and only varied in pitch. The term ‘ modulation,’ as understood by elocutionists, has reference to the general pitch of the vocal inflections in a passage. The inflections themselves are all either rising or falling. The rising turn of voice carries on the hearer’s attention to what is to follow—the falling turn directs attention to what has gone before; the former asks, or appeals to the hearer—the latter affirms or enjoins from the speaker; the former is negative—the latter is positive. Simple inflections rise or fall directly from their accentual pitch to their termination,. and the range of the inflection may have any extent, from less than a semitone to more than an octave. The strongest rising tones are expressive of interrogation, incredulity, or entreaty! and the strongest falling tones of affirmation, assurance, or command. Compound inflections unite the two vocal movements-falling before a rising termination, and rising before a falling termination—with one accentual impulse; and the effect of this opposition of tone is to add to the expressiveness of the termination a suggestion or inference in accordance with the expressiveness of the commencing turn. Thus : ‘ Not one,’ with compound rising tone, implies ‘ but more.’ ‘ Even one,’ with compound falling tone, implies ‘and not more.’

The emphatic force of tones depends on their accentual pitch in relation to that of preceding tones, as well as on the extent and the direction of the inflection. The amount of possible variety in these degrees is exceedingly great, but the peculiar expressiveness of individual modes of inflection is definite, traceable to systematic principles, and of limited extent, depending principally on three qualities—

 

1. Rising or falling accent as well as termination; as

 

Cónstánt, Cònstànt.

 

2. Rising or falling accent with opposite termination: as

 

Cŏnstant, Cônstànt.

 

3. Accent higher or lower than preceding pitch; as

 

	die? To		To		dream.
To		sleep.		sleep? Perchance to

 

These three sources of vocal variety the student of elocution should have under ready and perfect control.

The art of elocution has received comparatively little attention in modern times. The value of a good delivery is certainly not less now than it was among the orators of ancient Greece and Rome; but the assiduity with which the art was cultivated by the latter, and the estimation in which it was held by them, presents strong contrast to the negligence and apathy of modern speakers in regard to delivery. This fact is not easily accounted for; the influence of elocution being such, that an inferior address well delivered never fails to create a stronger impression on an audience, than the most masterly composition that lacks the graces and enforcements of effective utterance and action.

The model for effective reading is to be found in the ordinary style of animated conversation. The speaker’s tones are not governed by the laws of punctuation, or by formal grammatical periods. Every clause in a sentence is, to the speaker, a period. The most complex sentence is only an aggregation of correlative sentences, each of which is a separate act of thought, and should be delivered as such in reading, as it always is in speaking. Modulation will show the relation of each part to the whole, but inflection should at the same time show each part to be in itself complete, as the statement of a distinct though subordinate fact or circumstance.

The rules which some elocutionists have laid down for the reading of sentences, are clearly at variance with this natural principle of intonation, and they lead to an artificiality of manner which is at best a pedantic tune. The formal arrangements of inflections, which have been gravely prescribed for ‘ simple’ and ‘ compound,’ ‘commencing’ and ‘concluding’ serieses, ‘penultimate’ and ‘ante-penultimate ‘ clauses, &c., have done much to discourage students from paying proper attention to the art of elocution, and have almost justified the denunciations of some authors, who have declared elocution to be altogether unworthy of study. Thus, Archbishop Whately, in his disgust at the jerking alternations of ups and downs prescribed in elocutionary rules, counsels students to have nothing to do with rules, but simply to be ‘ natural.’ To be natural, however, is to follow those laws or principles which undoubtedly are to be deduced from the operations of the voice in spontaneous speaking; and these must be studied by all who would be ‘ natural’ in practising the art of reading. In elocution, as in painting and in every art, the highest attainment of the finished artist is to be natural.

Nature and art are not opposites; the former is the end of the latter; the latter the means to the former. To be natural does not ‘come by nature,’ but by art; and ‘ art itself is nature.’ Elocution, therefore, is none the less ‘ natural’ that it must be studied as an art; and the study of this art is not justly to be condemned, whatever condemnation may be due to the errors of elocutionists.

To acquire a natural style of reading, the chief point to be attended to is the logical clausing of sentences, so as to present, with separate completeness to the hearer’s mind, every fact and every associated circumstance, whether principal or subordinate. Punctuation is not a sufficient guide for this purpose; it will sometimes even mislead. Thus, in the following sentence from Macaulay’s Essay on Milton: ‘Even when a system has been formed, there is still something to add, to alter, or to reject’—the logic of the sentence is not brought out by the punctuation. The reader should make a modulative break after the word ‘ something,’ where no comma is placed, and he should, notwithstanding the separating commas, unite the three subsequent clauses by a modulative tie, to show their expletive nature, and the equal relation of each of them to their common antecedent. Thus: ‘There is still something | to add, to alter, or to reject.’

In the following sentence from the same Essay, no comma occurs, but the reader will nevertheless divide the period into at least three modulative clauses: ‘ The blaze of truth and liberty | may at first dazzle and bewilder | nations which have become half blind in the house of bondage.’ Here the first section contains the subject of the sentence, the second the predicate, and the third the object, with its dependent clauses. It is to be observed that the object ‘nations’ is separated from its governing verb ‘bewilder,’ only because the former is itself the governing antecedent to a new but subordinate sentence.

These illustrations are sufficient to show that the clausing of sentences for effective reading is dependent on a different principle from that which regulates punctuation.

Nor is any particular mode of vocal inflection necessarily associated with any of the marks of punctuation. This is particularly to he noted in connection with the sign of interrogation. The position of this mark, too, at the end of a period often misleads readers into an unnatural tone. The interrogative part of the sentence may not extend beyond a single clause, and this may be followed by many clauses within the same period. The mark of interrogation would therefore be better placed at the beginning of a sentence. But, as above shown, interrogative language may sometimes require for its just expression any one of all the tones in the gamut of speech. Thus : ‘ Will you ?’ if pronounced with a simple rising tone, this question asks or appeals; and with an extended range of inflection, it expresses doubt or surprise. But the form of words does not necessitate the rising tone. Thus : ‘ Will you ?’ If pronounced with a simple falling turn, the question expresses desire or expectation on the part of the speaker; and with an extended range of inflection, it conveys more or less of authoritative injunction. The same question may legitimately, also, take either of the compound forms of inflection. Thus: ‘ Will you ?’ If pronounced with a compound rising turn, it infers some cause of opposition or hindrance; and with an extended range of inflection, insinuates more or less of threatening or penalty. With a compound falling tone, thus : ‘ Will you ?’ it suggests more or less of defiance and contempt, according to the pitch of the commencing turn, and the extent of the concluding inflection.

The principles of vocal expression, clausular pronunciation, emphasis, &c., as above sketched, apply equally to speaking as to reading; but it is in connection with the latter chiefly that they require to be studied, as they are generally applied instinctively in spontaneous speaking, even by those who are most enslaved by vicious habits in reading. The management of the voice, however, should be more than an instinct to the orator; and there is much in the philosophy of vocal expression that will be studied with equal advantage by both speakers and readers.

Extemporaneous speaking is greatly assisted by a good habit of elocution, and it is at the same time strongly conducive to the formation of such a habit. The deliberate utterance which weighs every phrase, gives the mind time to revolve its ideas, and choose the most effective words for their expression; and the evolution of a continuous train of thinking in coherent sentences compels deliberation and guarded delivery. But while the grandest triumphs of oratory are thus to be achieved, the requisites for success are such that great orators must ever be few iii number. The ancient rhetoricians describe their model speaker as one who is accomplished in all knowledge, and esteemed for every virtue, and who has devoted more than the average duration of human life to laborious preparation; for they held that the oratorical faculty could not attain its full development and influence until hoary hairs had added the venerableness of age to a reputation for learning, sagacity, and unimpeachable morality.

Speaking from memory admits of the application of every possible element of effectiveness, rhetorical and elocutionary; and in the delivery of a few great actors, the highest excellence in this art has been exemplified. But speaking from memory requires the most minute and careful study, as well as high elocutionary ability, to guard the speaker against a merely mechanical fluency and thoughtlessly rhythmical utterance. This mode of delivery is therefore only appropriate to special efforts, for which due preparation can be made. Otherwise, memoriter delivery—as of sermons composed and learned at the rate of one or two every week—is altogether incompatible with excellence either of matter or of manner.

That the art of reading, which is on all accounts worthy of the highest position among the exercises of students for the oratorical professions, should be so utterly neglected in our systems of education, is a reproach to the enlightenment, of our age; and it is especially a scandal to our universities, in which the examples of the famous orators of antiquity, and the lessons of their experience, are so fully known, yet practically dishonored.