Directed Pronunciation

Introduction

“Grammar is the instinct that we use when we learn to speak; later it is turned into a battery of rules designed to humiliate us and punish every line we write!”

For many people, life seems much safer when old routines, concepts and traditions are preserved. Change challenges and is often viewed with suspicion and fear. It has always been the same and as such, it is quite difficult for people to accept new ideas and opinions with great agility.

Today, we know that the world is a globe; nevertheless, this is, in fact, old news – the Greeks had figured that one out two and half millenniums ago. The first calculations concerning the size of the Earth were made three centuries before Christ. Even so, the Catholic Church found it convenient, even necessary, to refute such scientific evidence for many centuries. Later, in the Renaissance period, Galileo was put under house-arrest by the same Papal institution for saying that not everything revolves around the Earth; that is to say contrary to the doctrine of the Church, the Earth was not the centre of the Universe.

Many centuries later, Einstein’s theory of Relativity sowed new visions of the Universe. Today, we measure the speeds of far flung galaxies to calculate the size of the void and debate whether or not the Universe is in expansion. In just a few decades, Einstein’s so important theory no longer serves the scientific community of astrophysics and new adaptations and concepts about the nature of things are in constant evolution.

Even so, the need for concrete data has meant that scientists so often spend many years trying to prove what we have always come to suspect from ancient lore, passed down through the generations. And it is here that the reader must forgive me if I am doing much the same thing; using the same trick to show and prove that grammar is such an easy thing that even a baby is able to assimilate everything and start communicating without the slightest reference to a grammar book.

That’s right! Even so, before seeing the light myself, I – as an English teacher – went grammar in hand, trying to convert my students with the sacred rules. Thankfully this did not last long. The grammar book went in the bin and instead I sought to teach using a wealth of examples to show the paths of logic. Little by little, I began to perceive the tradition and evolution of the language with the aid of certain illuminations. I began to construct a base of different grammar rules which would eliminate the exceptions – something which I felt could not exist if the native speaker can successfully avoids dedicated grammar study itself.

After this giant leap, I fell exactly into the same old trap of following tradition by attempting to resolve everything on paper, slave to grammar transcription with neat little rules based upon the written word.

Even so, I sat down in front of the computer, in 2002, with a fistful of ideas that I just simply had to get out of my head and live in peace – mission accomplished. What happened though was that one idea led to another and in a domino effect the house fell, I mean the sacred system of English grammar. Of course, there were the occasional shrieks of “Eureka” but little did I know that the best was yet to come and that this was just the tip of the iceberg! There were still one or two points that no grammar book had managed to really explain – such as: prepositions and Phrasal Verbs – veritable grammar mountains to be climbed.

Nevertheless, one fine day I accompanied a friend of mine to a singing class held by one of the most famous speech trainers in Brazil. There, the renowned teacher showed how the notes are projected through the body and not just straight out through the mouth. Well, by this I mean that, although the sound escaped through the nose and mouth, the low Doh was projected straight down through the feet with the Ray, Mi, Fa rising to complete an octave of Doh directly ahead. The next octave started to turn around the top of the head with the highest notes being projected out through the back of the head and neck. It was fascinating; just to think that sound could be projected. This is exactly what I needed to play those notes off the range of the saxophone. Once back at home, experiments on the sax done, I was once more sat in front of the computer facing the task of my grammar book when it started to dawn on me; little did I realize that here was not only the answer to my problem of the prepositions but the real reason behind my arguments for a new and manageable logic.

Eureka! Now I really had it! This is what I needed to explain the future, present and past.

It soon became obvious how things had their directions. Of course the future is directed in front of us and the past behind us. Even then I was still quite innocent to the magnitude of the revelation. One by one the theory consolidated my new concepts but rather than publishing my New Anglo Saxon Logic, I soon realized that I had a new book to write, “Directed Pronunciation”.

The secret was inside us all the time and never on the page.

You don’t say! Well, that’s right! The grammar is nothing else but a function of the pronunciation and operates within our instincts. The worst of it (or perhaps the best of it) is how humiliatingly simple things really are. What is more, it is not just English that is like this. Of course, an instinct can’t just be English, can it?

I started testing the new directional linguistic sense in Portuguese, Spanish and any other language I could find native speaker victims of (Japanese, Korean, Tamil, Punjabi, Northern Southo, etc.) and guess what – all the test directions were all parallel.

Well why wouldn’t they be! If history is correct and all languages come from a common source the basic concept directions would be the same and even if language developed independently, many of the obvious points could easily fall into the logic.

This really is it! Pronunciation takes place inside the mouth and even though my mouth and I are not at the centre of the Universe, the mouth is the centre of our individual universes. It is from here, in the middle of my own world that I interpret all that happens around me and it was from here as a baby, just like everyone else, that I developed my very own “Big Bang” – in which I learned to relate to the world and communicate about it.

Directed Pronunciation gives us the clues about the logic behind the words, whatever they might be.

In difference to phonetics, which attempts to describe an exact form of the pronunciation of the written word, DP gives much more. It is theatrical; it is pure communication. When we know the direction a word has we can even distinguish the senses between homophones, we might even realize that spelling may not be as crazy as we have believed all this time. When we investigate the directional senses and concepts we can understand that words not only have directions but levels, different positions for different functions. Past and participle forms, such as “played” are not pronounced the same. Although they sound the same their directions are quite distinct, with the past directed behind us and the participle drawn inside us. This direction allows us to see that the participle is not used so much to denote fact but rather experience or change but enough of the complexities for the moment.

Should you accept the challenge to stop and examine grammar from this new angle, I guarantee that any barriers or blocks you may have that impede your internal logic in accepting a new language (and I say language rather than grammar!) will disappear. To the learner of English, you will realize that you have the grammar instinct inside you. For the teacher, with an easy base to explain grammar one may concentrate on the pronunciation which will help students to program their existing logic with parallel vocabulary. Finally for the non-native teacher, examine your pronunciation with the true directions. If the direction is true, the learning of your students will be enhanced!

The truth is you knew it all along, without knowing that you did.

So now you know your instinct knew. Load your minds with the vocabulary and let the dynamic of Directed Pronunciation do the rest. Using understanding within the pronunciation of the content, everything will slip into place, your fluency will not just improve, in fact, by using the right direction or “sense” of pronunciation you will be forced to imitate the native speaker. Can you imagine?

Over the following pages, I invite you to uncover the mysteries of grammar once and for all. Welcome to a new era in language learning, welcome to Directed Pronunciation

What is Directed Pronunciation and why could it be useful?

Directed Pronunciation, for want of a better term, is nothing other than the small directions that we use in speech. Imperceptible on the page, these movements, nevertheless, create the necessary interpretations inside the mouth which help us to distinguish the variant intentions and meanings in words. But what are these directions?

Well to help answer that, let me ask another question to provide an example to better understand this concept - Have you ever stopped to think why verbs in other languages have such a complexity of forms?

Well, if we take a look at the verb dar (to give) in Portuguese, we can see that the verb varies tremendously just in the tenses without even considering any conjugation. If we were to analyse the directions (see posting 20 march 2011), we would perceive that each tense has its own distinct projection and position in the mouth. 

 

The verb Give in Portuguese: DAR

(First person singular conjugations)

• Present – Dou
• Past – Dei
• Future – Darei
• Subjunctive – Dê
• Imperative - Dá
• Imperfect Past (ind.) - Dava
• Past Subjunctive - Desse
• Future Subjunctive – Der
• Conditional – Daria
• Past Perfect simple - Dera
  In terms of verb tenses, this means that our perception of the future is always in front of us, whilst the past is already behind us. The present is where we stand in time, fixing us vertically to the ground, whilst our dreams, flying high, like thoughts and considerations, are raised into the mind area.
   
  The resulting projections are varied but we can, at this stage perceive certain points of the compass to help us decipher the senses. We are born with a certain spatial logic – experience built up probably whilst still in the womb – but, in anycase, as we all do, the brain is clearly developed along these lines. Instinct is, after all, a defence mechanism. One part of such instinct allows us to quickly assimilate our native language grammar and in simple terms, Directed Pronunciation is an explanation of that grammar built upon our spatial instincts.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  A common source or common sense?
  
  
  According to general belief, the many and different languages and their specific grammars have been developed from a single and common Euro-Asian language; nevertheless, the evolution of language has had much to do with differences in both pronunciation and culture. No matter what words we use, the senses behind our words are common between languages. 
  In terms of verb tenses, this means that our perception of the future is always in front of us, whilst the past is already behind us. The present is where we stand in time, fixing us vertically to the ground, whilst our dreams, flying high, like thoughts and considerations are raised into the mind area.
  
  
  
  In terms of verb tenses, this means that our perception of the future is always in front of us, whilst the past is already behind us. The present is where we stand in time, fixing us vertically to the ground, whilst our dreams, flying high, like thoughts and considerations are raised into the mind area.
  When we transfer this to linguistics, our main centre of perception – the eye – becomes the reference point. Even so, the illusion of space and time is transferred to the mouth for the formation of ideas into speech.
  The centre of gravity of speech will depend greatly on both the language and the variant accents as speakers limit or characterize their speech. Consequently sounds, words, and even grammar will change. What does not change, however, are the directions.
  Such revelations will even help us to understand grammar differences between the English spoken in the UK and the U.S.A. , as well as provide us with vital clues as to the evolution of language in general.
  
  
  Natural Learning
  
  
  When we learn our languages as babies, we don’t need books to set down the rules. We learn the projected directions, or “sense”, almost by pure instinct, overlaying the vocabulary we gain, early on, principally from our mothers and, as such, we learn to speak our mother tongue.
  
  
  The baby, however, forms the basic grammar framework before being able to accurately pronounce the individual words. Nevertheless, it is possible to observe the directions they evolve even within their own baby language.
  The child requires time to learn the exact meaning or meanings of words and to be able to discern the different senses and different contexts. Many years are required to accumulate an extensive vocabulary which will include the experience of school and study. However, the communicative base is established well before the child reaches the average school age of five years old – long before the child starts to read and write. The child’s language is influenced by its parents and peers, without specific study of any grammar rules in the true, academic sense of the idea.
  
  
  With these first linguistic steps, each generation repeats the programming of their very own super-computer; the brain.
  The brain is very active in the first few years of life, making the vital connections that we shall need to function in our particular worlds. Individual stimulation, on the other hand, is a factor which differs, with each person receiving a varied diet of stimulation; some more musical, others more visual, others more linguistic, etc.
  
  

  

  Linguistic Spatial Inflection Mapping

  In linguistic terms, each of us is directly influenced by our mothers, learning, amongst other things, her language, accent and all; and this happens precisely due to absence of other alternatives. When a child is exposed in its early years to another language, it will learn that too, in function with the stimulus that it receives; maybe just one or two words or complete fluency, thus becoming bilingual.
  
  
  Children manage to construct the linguistic map, their grammar operational system, from the basis of directions. Whilst in the early neurological phase of making cerebral connections, children have a greater facility to learn, amongst other things, language. The child, then, creates a linguistic map in its head and once done, overlays the specific lexicon for any language. When the child reaches a certain point, between18 months and three years, the child’s communicative ability through speech suddenly explodes, giving rise to greater facility in the accumulation of new language. It is probably no coincidence that the potential age for such a leap probably depends largely on the arrival of teeth, which are so important to the quality of sound production and thus, the ability to enunciate better.
  
  
  To get an idea of what I am referring to, just take a look at the map opposite. This is just a start; a basic framework for communication. Even so, within its simplicity there is a vast amount of information which we may employ to assimilate English or any other language for that matter.
  The first revelation is that with this linguistic map, we can start to perceive and understand exactly what is happening linguistically when we speak. The second revelation is that traditional grammar does not explain the reality of speech in a simple and digestible form and is, furthermore, far from complete; and I am not referring just to English! 
  
  
  
  
  The Linguistic Key?
  
  Directed Pronunciation could be the linguistic key that will open great possibilities in communication.
  
  
  Directed Pronunciation is a study and linguistic anchor that allows for the development of new methods for acquiring new languages in the accelerated mode; an attempts to recreate the programming of the new language in the mind using much the same logic we used as babies when we learned our mother-tongue, overlaying directional senses over the exact same senses in our first languages. By putting the new language experiences into the same “boxes” within our minds, when searching for such data – the vocabulary, syntax and grammar – the mind will find all this logically, in the same area of memory it uses to store first language equivalents, presuming the mind and memory really do function in this way, of course.
  
  
  Directed Pronunciation gives us the correct directional sense of expression – the correct grammar flow – and, with this, the ability to produce an adequate pronunciation approximates that of the native; perhaps becoming even quite perfect, if we can achieve the right centre of gravity.
  And what about the accent? ...Well, people always say I’m foreign because of my accent. In fact most people sound foreign because of their errors in direction of pronunciation, a breaking of the sense. As for the accent, everyone has one! All languages have different accents, but, on the other hand, all language functions have but one unique directional sense and to err the direction is to risk not being understood; it is to give out all the wrong signals.
  
  
  Wrong signals and bad pronunciation
  
  
  
  
  Bad pronunciation comes particularly from trying to read the new language straight off the page, before having the slightest idea of how it sounds – an absence of acquiring the words through the spoken language. This does not generally happen so much in our first languages as we acquire the major part of our language through listening and speaking well before we learn to read, or encounter the words on the page.
  Having said that, English speakers do have certain problems with Latin rooted words, and ,as they often mistake the pronunciation, we can be pretty sure that the comprehension of the true meaning of such words is also quite shaky.
  Learning from books is not the only hazard for learning; many non-native language teachers do not have perfect pronunciation. Such pronunciation errors will be passed on from teacher to student.
  As I pointed out, the most important element in pronunciation is maintaining the grammar, the sense. In other words, one must maintain the true directional sense, and as the direction can be so easily conquered or corrected through a study of Directed Pronunciation, it would be well worth some special care and attention from the teaching profession in general. 
  
  

  

  Different centres of gravity between languages

  Positions & Accents
  
  
  The typical accents and consequently the respective centres of pronunciation of each language vary greatly. Whilst the French dig in behind the front teeth, the Japanese use a higher and deeper mouth position. To get an idea of what I mean, just try an imitation of different nations speaking your own native language. To imitate well, one needs to adopt the central position of the target language. Obviously, we shall be looking to reverse the process to gain a good accent in English.
  English, like other languages, is not short of accents; as such it is necessary to adopt a standard for academic reference. Standard British Pronunciation is lower than a standard American accent, which is often somewhat nasal. Similarly, Brazilian Portuguese is lower than Castellano from Spain, which, being higher, tends to force a wider mouth position. Such different centres of gravity of the local pronunciation influence the transition of one tongue to another and we can detect and study this in the changes in specific common words.
  
  
  All this, however, constitutes the study of linguistics, an extremely broad and complex area; nevertheless, for the sake of an example, a simple one at that, we can observe how the F in Falcão (Portuguese) becomes the higher H in Halcón (Castellano). The lower position of British English allows us to keep the F in Falcon, consequently forcing the higher American accent to swallow the F more. Whilst Spanish changes American English for a common bird name cannot, because Americans still basically speak English, maintaining established vocabulary, and not a distinct American language as such; the result is that British and American English become two very close relative dialects of each other. If American were a separate language the F may well have changed to facilitate the local pronunciation. The written word here, however, has not experienced any modifications by Webster even though many may prefer to class the Falcon as a Hawk.
  Obviously, with more time and less literacy, the formal English on either side of the Atlantic would have experienced more radical changes, but the separation has occurred in relatively modern and literate times, providing more cross-overs between the two than deviations away from an original form.
   
   
  Pronunciation Traps
  
  
  Anyone who has learned another language quite well and lived a while in the target culture will certainly have dropped a few bloopers, at least, if they are anything like myself. Travellers, too, sometimes must forgive the unfortunate consequence of imprecise pronunciation; and I say forgive, because the credit lies where the effort is made – so few English speakers even bother to learn other languages.
  
  
  In Brazil for example, and more particularly São Paulo, the mania of pronouncing a tchi sound on final t consonants could provoke unfortunate results; Sit ,which should have a cut dry ending that descends, turns into “Sitchi” – CITY. Sheet becomes – Shitty (Spanish would typical say shit - with similar unfortunate results); and this is just the start. Each language will produce a string of comic, or should we say unfortunate, results. This, however, can be eliminated once we understand more about the directional importance of communication.
  Many learners encounter difficulties in distinguishing the difference between them, especially when the word has the same written form: i.e. wind (the) ; wind (to). In reality these two words have different projections. If we push the word WIND forward and out, we have the a gusty breeze. On the other hand a circular pulled-inward enunciation will alter the vowel sound – to wind up a watch – or by changing the flow – wind down and relax.
  
  
  To take a further example of what I mean, let us take a look at a group of words that are phonetically similar to each other and quite infuriating to many learners (in fact there are various sets of such annoying groups of words)
  When somebody reads LIVE, they have to decide whether the word is the act of living(on-going horizontal forward pushing) or a fixing of the place where someone resides (vertical fixing), or perhaps the act of happening at the same moment on the television – a live show -, or even not dead (alive)– which could further be interpreted as active, like a live electrical cable or wire. Within the context of the phrase, is not so difficult to determine the meaning; we identify in which case our word is a verb and in which is an adjective – this inside the grammar will affect how we produce, or rather say, the word. In this sense, the dynamic pronunciation of the verb is quite restricted up inside a high frontal position of the mouth, causing the vowel sound to be short; whereas in the adjective, the sound is pulled downwards and slightly backwards before releasing (in the low adjective position). This extends the vowel sound (ai – as in “I”), making it distinct from the verb.
  
  
• I live in Rio de Janeiro
• The show was recorded live in London
  
  
  
  
  Once we manage to perceive the differing directions, we can note the differences between such similar wordsto Live such as: Leave, love, loathe, lie, life etc.
  Each has its specific direction, which is significant in determining both the sound and consequently the interpreted sense of the word.
  
  
  With the pronunciation of each word in place, each word starts to fit into the correct path of the syntax flow. Suddenly, that ping-pong effect of the tongue and the old excuse – Oh, languages are too difficult for me – fade into oblivion. Words start to connect, producing flowing phrases. The secret to fluency is exactly this. In fact, with broken directions, we shall never become fluent. Many people improve this aspect over years of study and practice; others simply become entrenched in their errors.
  
  
  Apart from sending confusing messages to our listeners, broken directions probably also confuse the brain’s ability to assimilate the new language, the broken directions being a contradiction to those of the mother language, whether this be new vocabulary, verb tenses or conjugation. Directed Pronunciation promises to be the key which will unlock our minds, allowing the easy application of new vocabulary, grammar and syntax in the target language.
  
  
  Directed Pronunciation is, then, useful because the directions create the current, which is always present in any language, the flow. It is the instinctive grammar that we possess, and once liberated, it will allow us to acquire new languages more naturally.
  
  
  What all this means is that, without even being aware of the fact, the budding student already knows English grammar or any other grammar for that matter. As we get older, we lose the natural ability to build the instinct. Usually, but not always, those persons who have reached 15 years of age and above, encounter greater problems in learning languages. And for those who are more logical than others, the rules laid down by the sacred and traditional grammar methods manage only to confuse and confound. However, when we combine logic with directions, that’s to say, the cultural logic over the universal grammar sense, everything becomes clearer. As the same grammar sense is already inside of us all – inbuilt into our mother-tongue grammar – it is perhaps better to stop worrying about the very often dreaded grammar itself. Without such concern, we can avoid specific study and start to use the different language tools – English , for example. Once we apply the new language in functional situations, putting real language in use, we really start to learn, measuring our success in communication terms against the interactive results we obtain.
  
  
  Over the following chapters, I shall reveals as much the logic of a modern Anglo-Saxon (English) as the directions that allow us to really key into our understanding.
  
  
  With the sense directions providing a constant 100% anchor to speech, many concepts and grammar myths will fall, as much in English Grammar as in the grammar of the reader’s very own mother tongue. You will, then, have to forgive me for so much vandalism in just one book, but it was a badly-shuffled house of cards. In the vision of Directed Pronunciation there is no space for irregularities, neither the necessity to list-learn all those exceptions to the rules. Irregularity is a thing of the past. 
   
  Therefore you will forgive my repetition and heralding when I welcome the reader to a new vision; welcome to Directed Pronunciation.