VOICE: How

Humans
Communicate?
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VOICE
MEANING
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 VOICE
▰ Voice refers to the sound formed in larynx and uttered
by mouth (Oxford English Dictionary)
▰ The sound made by the vibration of the vocal cords, esp
when modified by the resonant effect of the tongue and
mouth (Dictionary.com)
▰ We use our voice for two main types of interhuman
communication: speech and singing.

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 Phonetic Quality
▰ Voice quality and phonetic quality are two different
things.
▰ Phonetic quality refers to those aspects of the sound of
a voice that signal linguistic— in particular phonological
— information.
▰ https://youtu.be/LIZ78RwhSPc
Example:
INsult (noun) inSULT (verb)
PROceeds (noun) proCEED (verb) 4
 Voice Quality
▰ Voice quality is what one can hear when the phonetic quality
is removed, as for example when someone can be heard
speaking behind a door but what they are actually saying is
not audible.
▰ It has two components: organic component and setting
component.
▰ Organic component refers to the speaker’s physiological
vocal tract while setting component which refers to the
habitual muscular settings that an individual adopts when
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they speak.
 Tone of Voice
• This refers to how humans say the message.
Oftentimes, we can determine someone’s emotion
with the tone of their voice. For instance, one speaker
may sound angry, happy, or sad whenever he/she
speaks with the tone of his/her voice.
• The sound features that communicate this information
constitute what is called tone of voice, and it is one of
the ways in which we can verbally signal temporary
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emotional states.
 Voice as “Choice” and
“Constraint”
• When we speak it is often because we have information to
communicate. However, this information has to be processed
through two channels: most obviously, the message has to be
implemented by a speaker's individual vocal tract. 
• The message has to be given linguistic form too, and both these
channels affect the form of the message. The result of passing
information we want to convey through these channels is the
voice.

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 Voice as “Choice” and
“Constraint”
• When we want to communicate something in speech, we have to make choices
within our linguistic system. For example, when we want to signal the word
“back” as against “bag” we choose the phoneme k instead of G after bac. When
we want to signal our assumption that the hearer can identify the thing we are
talking about, we select the definite article “the” instead of the indefinite “a”
(the book vs. a book).
• But these choices have to be processed through our individual vocal tracts to
convert them into speech and therefore are constrained by the physical
properties of the individual's vocal tract. 
• A speaker's voice is the interaction of constraints imposed by the physical
properties of the vocal tract and choices that a speaker makes in achieving
communicative goals through the resources provided by the various
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components of his or her linguistic system.
Linguistic Structure

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 VOCAL
DELIVERY
VOCAL DELIVERY
• Vocal delivery includes components of speech delivery that
relate to your voice. These include rate, volume, pitch,
articulation, pronunciation, and fluency.
• Our voice is important to consider when delivering a speech
for two main reasons:
• First, vocal delivery can help us engage and interest the
audience;
• Second, vocal delivery helps ensure that our idea s are
communicated clearly.
SPEAKING FOR
ENGAGEMENT
 SPEAKING FOR ENGAGEMENT

• An unengaging delivery that doesn’t communicate

enthusiasm will translate into a lack of interest for most
audience members. 
• Although a speaker can be visually engaging by
incorporating movement and gestures, which we will discuss
more later, a flat or monotone vocal delivery can be sedating
or even annoying.
• Incorporating vocal variety in terms of rate, volume, and
pitch is key to being a successful speaker.
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 RATE
• Rate of speaking refers to how fast or slow you speak. If you speak
too fast, your audience will not be able to absorb the information you
present. If you speak too slowly, the audience may lose interest. 
• The key is to vary your rate of speaking in a middle range, staying
away from either extreme, in order to keep your audience engaged. In
general, a higher rate of speaking signals that a speaker is enthusiastic
about his or her topic. Speaking slowly may lead the audience to infer
that the speaker is uninterested, uninformed, or unprepared to present
his or her own topic. 
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 VOLUME
• Volume refers to how loud or soft your voice is. As with speaking rate, you
want to avoid the extremes of being too loud or too soft, but still vary your
volume within an acceptable middle range. When speaking in a typically sized
classroom or office setting that seats about twenty-five people, using a volume a
few steps above a typical conversational volume is usually sufficient. When
speaking in larger rooms, you will need to project your voice. You may want to
look for nonverbal cues from people in the back rows or corners, like leaning
forward or straining to hear, to see if you need to adjust your volume more. 

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 PITCH
• Pitch refers to how high or low a speaker’s voice is. As with other vocal
qualities, there are natural variations among people’s vocal pitch. Unlike rate
and volume, there are more physiological limitations on the control we have
over pitch.
• For example, males generally have lower pitched voices than females. Despite
these limitations, each person still has the capability to intentionally change
their pitch across a range large enough to engage an audience. 
• Our pitch goes down slightly when we emphasize a serious or important point.
• Speakers often assume that their pitch is more varied and their delivery more
enthusiastic than the audience actually perceives it to be. 
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 VOCAL VARIETY
• Vocal variety includes changes in your rate, volume, and pitch that can make
you look more prepared, seem more credible, and be able to engage your
audience better. 
• Employing vocal variety is not something that takes natural ability or advanced
skills training. It is something that beginning speakers can start working on
immediately and everyone can accomplish.
• The key is to become aware of how you use your voice when you speak, and
the best way to do this is to record yourself.

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SPEAKING FOR
CLARITY
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 SPEAKING FOR CLARITY

• In order to be an effective speaker, your audience should

be able to understand your message and digest the
information you present. 
• Audience members will make assumptions about our
competence and credibility based on how we speak.

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ARTICULATION
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 ARTICULATION
• Articulation refers to the clarity of sounds and words we produce.
• If someone is articulate, they speak words clearly, and speakers
should strive to speak clearly.
• Poor articulation results when speakers do not speak clearly. For
example, a person may say dinnt instead of didn’t, gonna instead
of going to, wanna instead of want to, or hunnerd instead
of hundred. 
• Unawareness and laziness are two common challenges to
articulation. 
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 ARTICULATION
• Some people just get in the habit of not articulating their words
well.
• This is a problem that is more common among men than women. 
• Both mumbling and slurring are examples of poor articulation. 
• In more informal settings, this type of speaking may be acceptable,
but in formal settings, it will be negatively evaluated, which will
hurt a speaker’s credibility.

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 PRONUNCIATION
• Unlike articulation, which focuses on the clarity of
words, pronunciation refers to speaking words correctly,
including the proper sounds of the letters and the proper
emphasis. 
• Mispronouncing words can damage a speaker’s credibility,
especially when the correct pronunciation of a word is
commonly known.
• For example: pro-NOUN-ciation or pro-NUN-ciation?
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 FLUENCY
• Fluency refers to the flow of your speaking. To speak with
fluency means that your speech flows well and that there are
not many interruptions to that flow.
• There are two main disfluencies, or problems that affect the
flow of a speech. 
• Fluency Hiccups
• Verbal Fillers

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 FLUENCY HICCUPS
• Fluency hiccups are unintended pauses in a speech that usually
result from forgetting what you were saying, being distracted, or
losing your place in your speaking notes. 
• Fluency hiccups are not the same as intended pauses, which are
useful for adding emphasis or transitioning between parts of a
speech. 
• While speakers should try to minimize fluency hiccups, even
experienced speakers need to take an unintended pause sometimes
to get their bearings or to recover from an unexpected distraction.
Fluency hiccups become a problem when they happen regularly
enough to detract from the speaker’s message. 25
 VERBAL FILLERS
• Verbal fillers are words that speakers use to fill in a gap between
what they were saying and what they’re saying next. Common verbal
fillers include um, uh, ah, er, you know, and like. 
• The best way to minimize verbal fillers is to become a higher self-
monitor and realize that you use them.
• Many students are surprised when they watch the video of their first
speech and realize they said “um” thirty times in three minutes.
• If you do lose your train of thought, having a brief fluency hiccup is
better than injecting a verbal filler, because the audience may not
even notice the pause or may think it was intentional.
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 COMMON CAUSES OF VERBAL
HICCUPS
▰ Lack of preparation. Effective practice sessions are the best way
to prevent fluency hiccups.
▰ Not writing for speaking. If you write your speech the way
you’ve been taught to write papers, you will have fluency hiccups.
You must translate the written words into something easier for you
to present orally. To do this, read your speech aloud and edit as
you write to make sure your speech is easy for you to speak.

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 COMMON CAUSES OF VERBAL
HICCUPS
▰ A poorly prepared speaking outline. Whether it is on paper or note
cards, sloppy writing, unorganized bullet points, or
incomplete/insufficient information on a speaking outline leads to
fluency hiccups.
▰ Distractions. Audience members and the external environment are
unpredictable. Hopefully audience members will be polite and will
silence their phones, avoid talking while the speaker is presenting,
and avoid moving excessively. There could also be external noise
that comes through a door or window. A speaker can also be
distracted by internal noise such as thinking about other things.
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