So I spend a lot of time analyzing language--including my own. I am constantly intrigued by my colloquial grammar choices and my inability to access basic vocabulary words ('thing' describes about 80% of the nouns in my life).
Most recently I've been noticing my pronunciation, which has lead me to the discovery that I have several speech impediments.
I was never sent to speech therapy as a child, and I've gotten along just fine all these years with my imperfect consonants, but it's still been a shocking realization. Apparently, I cannot produce a proper word-initial 'L,' so that when I introduce myself to people, I often have to say my name twice, more if the conversation takes place over the phone. Actually, I cannot produce a proper 'L' at all, but it's most noticeable when the 'L' comes at the beginning of the word. I became most aware of my 'L' problem when I tried to say the word 'lily,' and even in my head it sounded somewhat muddy.
I also do not produce 'G' quite right. The problem with the 'G' is very similar to the 'L,' so I have decided to blame the shape of my tongue.
The other problem is 'S.' There is sometimes a slight whistle when I make and 'S' sound. I think my dad and my brother have the same issue, so this might also be genetic, caused by the shape of our mouths or our teeth.
Linguists are not really speech pathologists. I have no idea how one goes about fixing these kinds of imperfections. Fixing grammar and word pronunciation are easy enough for me. In high school I even made a conscious effort to shift all of my vowels from the Utah dialect to standard American English (though I didn't get it quite right because sometimes I end up sounding like I'm from Canada). These problems with the consonants baffle me because they have so much to do with the way the mouth is shaped and the placement of the tongue and the release of air and although I can hear that I am doing it wrong, I do not know what specifically is wrong about it.
8 years ago
2 comments:
Ah, the Linda Minnesotan accent. I miss it. Hey, did you call me the other day and not leave a message? For shame!
Have you dealt with any temporary speech impediments? I have. That's one of the problems of being an at-home Mom--you start speaking with little children impediments. Like this one time, a friend at church asked me about my experience with speech therapy because some of her kids needed some therapy. That was a wake-up call! Not being around enough adults, I had developed a lisp (thanks, Lucy)! After explaining that reason for the lisp, I told her to talk to Chris, who did have speech therapy as a kid for a lisp. He was really glad when he could say his name: Chris Hayes.
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