The Athenian Demosthenes spoke and stuttered since childhood. At age 7 he started working on his speech. He had two teachers and his own original methodology. And by the age of 30, he had become one of the greatest orators in history. Photo: ancientrome.ru
However, after two weeks, the classroom owner began to realize that the courses looked like a set of fifth-grade rhetoric assignments. The most intellectual part was reading and retelling episodes of Anna Karenina. But what finally ended Christina was nonsense: a childish game of words and associations. After a lesson in nonsense, the owner of the salon clearly understood that she was unlikely to speak for even a quarter of a million.
The ability to express yourself correctly is a very hot commodity nowadays. For many entrepreneurs and bloggers, the success of their business largely depends on it. Therefore, cunning teachers can earn millions on speech culture lessons without leaving the couch.
But what does it mean to speak correctly? How to distinguish a real teacher of speech culture from a fake? We talked about this with Professor Azalia Blinova, head of the department of stage speech at the Yekaterinburg Theater Institute.
Azalia Vsevolodovna, what does it mean to you to speak beautifully?
Azalia Blinova: Remember Bazarov’s phrase: “My friend, Arkady Nikolaich! I ask you one thing: do not speak beautifully.” Overly ostentatious eloquence sometimes only hurts. First of all, we must speak clearly, logically and literally correctly.
And as for the pretty things… I think Ellochka the cannibal with her “Ho-ho! Boy!” She also seemed like she spoke beautifully. But her reserve, as we remember, consisted of 30 words.
To speak correctly it is necessary to read a lot from childhood. Fortunately, we have the wealth that classical writers left us. Read, use your vocabulary, absorb the best examples. And completely free. Reading texts that resonate in our soul is very useful, because then the expressiveness of speech arises organically, naturally.
That is why parents should read aloud to their children from early childhood. And Russian poetry, prose and fairy tales. And Chukovsky and Marshak. From a young age, the child must be surrounded by pure words.
That is, if you have not read it and do not have a reserve with which to express your thoughts, are the courses, even for 250 thousand, useless?
Azalia Blinova: Well, they will finally read Anna Karenina (smiles – EM). In general, I think that it is not public speaking experts who recommend this type of tasks. Perhaps one of our former students organized courses. One of my students moved to Moscow, she did not enter the theater and dedicated herself to teaching; In one hour she earns several times more than I did at university. I ask, who do you teach there? And in Moscow, she says, there are so many girls from the provinces who want to work as salespeople in large shopping centers, but their dialect is local, colloquial, that’s why I work with them. Yes, she masters spelling, diction and voice, but this is not enough to start teaching.
How to distinguish good courses from bad ones?
Azalia Blinova: First of all, you have to find out what kind of training the teacher has. What if he is an imposter or a school dropout? True speech education is taught in philological faculties and theater universities. In this case, of course, it is necessary to listen to how the teacher himself speaks. If you like his speech and the reviews of the course are good, it’s probably worth a try. But it’s easy to be fooled. You know, there is, for example, a feature of the Urals: when they want to demonstrate the culture of speech, some begin to “deliberately spread pA-maskovki”, that is, they shout as much as they can. And then someone might think: “Oh, how nice he talks.”
But this, as a rule, is an imitation of the vernacular Moscow dialect, when they are clearly overdone with Akan. Although, in fact, it is the Moscow acacia speech that is considered literary correct. It has a strong stressed vowel. A is an amazing vowel. All unstressed words in Russian change slightly. You can hardly hear them. The saturation of speech with meaning and emotions is given to us by stressed vowels. After all, the intonational richness of speech is not just the desire to say something a little softer, to give weight to the words, or a little higher to express emotions, it is a natural ability that has been given to us by God, by nature . , to convey both our attitude and our desires to our interlocutor both through specific words and through intonation.
For example, a child has fallen, cries loudly, and I try to calm him: “You are my m-II-lazy, what are you, up-AA-l? Where is your pain? Oh, n – OO- zhka. Come on, let me blow it.” And it doesn’t matter if I blow or not. The baby already feels a little better because of the voice that my care transmits to him. Correct expressive speech is a kind of well-baked multi-layered cake. In addition to intonation, vocal sound and timbre color are also important.
Is it necessary to get rid of the local, Ural, South Russian and other dialects? Or is what you say more important, not how?
Azalia Blinova: It depends on the field in which the person works. If you need to talk a lot, if the success of the business depends on it, of course, you need to think and work on your speech.
Using courses or can listening help?
Azalia Blinova: If you don’t have the opportunity to study with a teacher, you can do it yourself. It is necessary to listen more to speakers who speak correctly. There are magnificent audio plays read by actors dating back to the Soviet era. Furthermore, listening to them is a great pleasure. They speak impeccably. It is even better to enter a linguistic environment where one speaks without the peculiarities of the local dialect.
Ellochka the cannibal also thought she spoke well
By the way, before it was almost unambiguous to know where a person was from by dialect. And now you cannot immediately tell who is in front of you: an Uralian, a Muscovite or a native of St. Petersburg. We start to communicate more and the lines are blurring?
Azalia Blinova: People have become more educated. They pay more attention to your speech. Our consciousness has expanded. Yes, before in transport and in stores you could hear talking more clearly. This is everyday speech. Today our discourse has become closer to the literary.
Azalia Vsevolodovna, is it possible to get rid of physiological features that interfere with speech? Remember, for example, Tom Hooper’s magnificent film “The King’s Speech”, based on real events, about how King George VI of Great Britain dealt with his stuttering. And he even became an excellent speaker.
Azalia Blinova: You know, I have a student who recently won first place in a speech competition at theater universities in the country. The most surprising thing is that she stutters in life, but never on stage. The nature of stuttering is complex; Most of the time the reason is psychological pressures that come from childhood. It is important to eliminate them. My student is a very intelligent and deep guy. At the competition she had to reveal the essence of Chekhov’s story “The Student”. But not just retelling the content, but understanding why, why Chekhov wrote it. A story about faith and the suffering of Christ. Chekhov, when he wrote it, realized how strong his faith was, how much doubts he had. And this boy, my student, also has faith in God, and he also has doubts. The tweezers disappeared when he wanted to reveal Chekhov and his understanding of this story. By the way, now and in life he speaks more and more fluently.
Specifically
How to learn to speak correctly yourself?
1. Develop speech hearing. Read more and listen to examples of correct literary speech. For example, audio performances based on classic works performed by actors dating back to the Soviet era. Or audiobooks, the texts of which are recorded by good readers. Visit the theater more often.
2. Give yourself “imitation lessons” in good speech. Listen to how, for example, a famous actor reads poetry, and then try to read it yourself in the same way. And so on until it works.
3. Do not hold the lower jaw. Relax at the muscular level. Stretch your back so that air flows freely when you breathe, so nothing interferes with speaking.
4. Pronounce the stressed vowel clearly. Don’t blur the endings of the verbs.
5. It is not necessary to speak clearly about what is written. Oral speech has its own laws. Therefore, read point 1.
By the way
“Don’t speak kindly”: original source
This expression comes from the novel by IS Turgenev “Fathers and Sons”, chap. 21: “Look,” Arkady suddenly said, “a dry maple leaf has broken off and falls to the ground; its movements are completely similar to the movement of a butterfly. Isn’t it strange? The saddest and most dead thing is similar to the more joyful and alive.” “Oh, my friend, Arkady Nikolaitch!” exclaimed Bazarov. “I ask you one thing: do not speak beautifully.” Bazarov’s phrase is characterized by excessive eloquence that demands simplicity and logical sobriety of judgment.
