[The "Royal" and the "and Language" were only added in the 1990s]

Crystal sees this event as a merger of two strands:
"artistic" -- elocutionists, training actors and public speakers in
voice production, and "correcting accents thought to be inferior";
"medical" -- dealing with such things as aphasia caused by stroke, and
delayed speech development in children.
The RCST established a common standard of professional training and
qualifications, for the UK at least.

PTD used to opine that all "speech therapists" were frauds and
charlatans, apparently because he equated them with the "artistic" type,
and didn't believe anybody could or should be taught to speak with a
different accent. I, on the other hand, had only run into a few of the
"medical" type, who were doing linguistics courses. They seemed like
quite sincere and well-meaning people.

Ar an séiú lá de mí Eanair, scríobh Ross Clark:

> [The "Royal" and the "and Language" were only added in the 1990s]
>
> Crystal sees this event as a merger of two strands:
> "artistic" -- elocutionists, training actors and public speakers in voice
> production, and "correcting accents thought to be inferior";
> "medical" -- dealing with such things as aphasia caused by stroke, and delayed
> speech development in children.
> The RCST established a common standard of professional training and
> qualifications, for the UK at least.
>
> PTD used to opine that all "speech therapists" were frauds and charlatans,
> apparently because he equated them with the "artistic" type, and didn't
> believe anybody could or should be taught to speak with a different accent.
> I, on the other hand, had only run into a few of the "medical" type, who
> were doing linguistics courses. They seemed like quite sincere and
> well-meaning people.

In my medical work they are sensible, reliable people serving a huge under-met
need. The amount of aphasia, dysphasia and dysphagia from stroke is immense and
while we are getting better at preventing stroke it is unlikely that there will
be any significant decrease in need for them.

The “artistic” type; that’s a very odd opinion from PTD. Of course actors will
be interested in speaking in different accents, why wouldn’t they be? I seem to
remember him having difficulty believing me when I mentioned John Mahoney
(Martin Crane in “Frasier”) emigrated to the US at 18 and learned American
English as an adult.

--
‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
(C. Moore)

Aidan Kehoe <kehoea@parhasard.net> wrote:
>
> Ar an séiú lá de mí Eanair, scríobh Ross Clark:
>
> > [The "Royal" and the "and Language" were only added in the 1990s]
> >
> > Crystal sees this event as a merger of two strands:
> > "artistic" -- elocutionists, training actors and public speakers in voice
> > production, and "correcting accents thought to be inferior";
> > "medical" -- dealing with such things as aphasia caused by stroke, and delayed
> > speech development in children.
> > The RCST established a common standard of professional training and
> > qualifications, for the UK at least.
> >
> > PTD used to opine that all "speech therapists" were frauds and charlatans,
> > apparently because he equated them with the "artistic" type, and didn't
> > believe anybody could or should be taught to speak with a different accent.
> > I, on the other hand, had only run into a few of the "medical" type, who
> > were doing linguistics courses. They seemed like quite sincere and
> > well-meaning people.
>
> In my medical work they are sensible, reliable people serving a huge under-met
> need. The amount of aphasia, dysphasia and dysphagia from stroke is immense and
> while we are getting better at preventing stroke it is unlikely that there will
> be any significant decrease in need for them.
>
> The “artistic” type; that’s a very odd opinion from PTD. Of course actors will
> be interested in speaking in different accents, why wouldn’t they be? I seem to
> remember him having difficulty believing me when I mentioned John Mahoney
> (Martin Crane in “Frasier”) emigrated to the US at 18 and learned American
> English as an adult.
>

Over the years PTD has mentioned how actors and singers are professionally
trained to sound according to what they need or want to. I’m not sure who
does that, I know nothing about the backstage.

What I’m wondering about is whether the medical kind, as you call them, are
really effective in their work. But even being less than effective doesn’t
mean they’re cranks.

Maybe it was about some kind of ‘speech conversion therapy’ proposing to
educate people away from their dialect? But I don’t know if such a thing
even exists anywhere.

On 2024-01-08, Antonio Marques <no_email@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> Over the years PTD has mentioned how actors and singers are professionally
> trained to sound according to what they need or want to. I’m not sure who
> does that, I know nothing about the backstage.

Many movies will credit a "dialect coach".

I vaguely remember seeing a British dialect coach talk about her
work, and her description of specific accents was all impressionistic,
subjective, even outright bizarre, as she likened the speech of a
region to the features of the landscape and such. Still, I guess
she must be effective at her job.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de

Ar an t-ochtú lá de mí Eanair, scríobh Antonio Marques:

> [...] What I’m wondering about is whether the medical kind, as you call
> them, are really effective in their work. But even being less than effective
> doesn’t mean they’re cranks.

The thing they do that has most impact on others’ work in dealing with patients
post-stroke is diet recommendations, to reduce the risk of aspiration pneumonia
(food going into the trachea rather than the oesophagus and causing infection
as a result).

On looking into it there isn’t strong evidence for a particular protocol or
approach for rehabilitation, but of course the underlying neurological insult
(and thus the specifics of what needs re-training) will vary significantly and
will make useful study hard for that reason.

I would mentally place them with physiotherapists, who are also useful in
injury and rehabilitation, and whose interventions need to be engaged with by
the patient to take effect, and for which there also isn’t a strong evidence
base.

> Maybe it was about some kind of ‘speech conversion therapy’ proposing to
> educate people away from their dialect? But I don’t know if such a thing
> even exists anywhere.

As an adolescent in the 1990s I attended “speech and drama” classes where the
teacher grandly taught the “intercostal diaphragmatic method of breathing” (in
retrospect, the only alternative to that is mechanical ventilation and as a
healthy 13 year old I was not attached to a ventilator). The big priority where
I grew up was [ð] and [θ] instead of [d] and [t].

--
‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
(C. Moore)