The Spoken Language

The spoken language is something that Christine Adaire is "really worried about."  Christine is a Master Voice teacher and a member of the theater faculty at Roosevelt University.  As a voice teacher and professional acting coach, she is especially worried about the conscience removal of vowels from our everyday communications.  She gives these interesting examples found at NetLingo:

•  BFN = Bye for now.
• *$ = Starbucks
• 10Q = Thank you.
• AML = All my love.
• DISTO = Did I say that out loud?

Why would a teacher of the spoken word be worried about text lingo?  Because vowels carry emotions, while consonants shape and sometimes stop the flow of emotion.  Stop and think of the power of vowel sounds; they are the first sounds a baby makes when they express their need for nourishment, physical comfort or attention.  When the Greeks added vowels to the Phoenician alphabet, there was a surge in the study and development of literature and philosophy.  Can you imagine music being as beautiful or captivating without the use of vowels?  Really, do you think "2Brnt2B" can carry as much power as, "To be, or not to be?"

At SELAH it is has been our goal to introduce our students to many different forms of the spoken word.  Whether it be through the theater classes, creative writing or debate; even the study of art creates it's own form of verbal communication.  At SELAH there is a great emphasis on classic literature; after all, according to Kevin Gudahl, a text coach at the Shakespeare Theater on Navy Pier stated that in 1611 the average sentence would have contained 57 words, by World War II it was an average of 34 words.  Today the average sentence in the New York Times is only 17 - 10 words in length.

Of course, we realize the need to learn and explore other forms of communication such as this blog you are reading on today...we certainly would not want to return to the days of receiving our news from a Town Crier!  But we can appreciate the skill sets used in creating handwritten stories for creative writing, reading an original story during a peer review session, communicating an idea through a piece of art, memorizing lines for a theater production, and entertaining a community with meaningful performances while we continue to develop the spoken word.