Diction

In a broad meaning , the diction refers to quality Oral E of a Lecture or an impromptu speech. The term elocution is a Synonyme with this direction.

In a direction more specialized , diction is the Art or the Discipline which consists in pronouncing while speaking or by singing a text, in general read or by heart learned (in the second case one employs also the recitation term), aloud with an aim of making it possible most comprehensible to the listeners. It thus implies an unquestionable application compared to the simple stating (of impromptu words).

The use of an improved diction is generally the corollary of a register (choice of the words and formulas) of language more constant.

As soon as a person realizes, in French, of the not-obligatory connections, employs the written form of certain words (for example “that” instead of “that”) and more generally reduced the frequency of sound elision of Schwa S (by pronouncing Tom Thumb instead of P' tit Poucet ), finally as soon as it employs the not very used modes of the Conjugaison, in particular the Subjonctif, this person devotes to a exercise diction.

The reading of the Poetry versified and rimée is a requiring exercise of diction. On the contrary, and while being close to the precedent by its rhymes and the respect that it imposes of the number of feet corresponding to the Mélodie (but less rigidly than in poetry), the Chanson is probably the exercise of diction which meets most often people.

Practical of diction

Practice of diction, or the interest for this art are difficult to delimit. Here an attempt at enumeration based on the usual sequence of meeting of this discipline for the average individual (who will not meet the fourth level that if it specializes there).

Exercises of diction

The first contact of a child Francophone with diction is often the meeting with “exercises amusing” (Virelangue) such as:
  • “a hunter knowing to drive out”,
  • “the socks of the archduchess”,
  • “Dinon dined says one back of a turkey dodu”
  • etc

The play is to avoid the spluttering, complicated by the juxtaposition of words difficult to pronounce or comprising inversions of consonants (“piano, basket”), to really involve itself with the diction of true sentences.

Schooling

During their Schooling, the children meet diction in two forms:
  • the recitation;
  • the Dictated which imposes a good diction on behalf of a person (their teacher in general).

Dictionary

The majority of the Dictionnaire S are lexicons, and seldom give the pronunciation of the words which they define, which always makes on the other hand the bilingual dictionaries, intended the abroads, often in an empirical form. When the pronunciation is given, the International Phonetic Alphabet is employed. Since the French words often have, taking into account the phenomenon of connection, several pronunciations, it would also be advisable to employ for our language a notation making it possible to note this fact, which is the case in the Robert.

Theater, cinema, spoken press

Diction is taught in the mediums of the Théâtre, sometimes the academies of music.

Trades concerned with diction

(nonexhaustive list)

The paradox of diction

In the French language, the orthographical standard is prone to many discussions. Paradoxically, a dead end seems made, on the care taken to the oral language. In fact, the majority of the French, even educated, have a representation written of the language, representation in great share due to insistence of the school system on this aspect.

French is one of the rare languages difficult to control by his own native speakers. The phenomenon known as of connection does not seem to exist in any other language. Some compare to a external Sandhi, but a sandhi is regular whereas the connection is irregular.

“Accents” of French

French is spoken with various “accents”, sometimes “without accent”.

When French is spoken “without accent”, without giving more precision, that wants in makes say “without foreign accent”. The same if a person speaks French “with a light accent”, that wants to say “with a light foreign accent”. It is known indeed that any person having learned a language after adolescence never manages to eliminate certain characteristic from her diction, in particular at the levels phonological, phonetic and prosodic which immediately and are pitilessly perceived by the Locuteur S natives like “exogenic”.

In addition, certain speakers have an accent which is not really detected like foreigner but like “private individual” compared to French of reference. It is in general a regional accent. This detection is particularly made on the level variations of the Prosodie.

Certain linguists described the situation of the Francophonie in the following way, in three concentric zones:

  1. In the center of the complex, one finds the populations 1 which currently speak French like first or second language and who has like family substrate or first language a Langue of oil (in particular, the Picard, the Wallon) or a Franco-Provençal language. Paradoxically, it is necessary to associate with this group the Breton populations, having at the origin a substrate Celtique but having always been surrounded by populations 1. These populations 1 speak standard French what is called (though locally the R rolled can remain, returning the form local typified according to the dominant criteria) and in particular express in their speech the entirety of the phonological system, which includes/understands to sixteen vowels without counting the Diphtongue S (with the phonological direction, because certain phonetists do not recognize their existence in French).
  2. Deuxièmement one finds the populations 2 which currently speak French like first or second language and who has like family substrate or first language a Langue of oc or another Latin Langue (Occitan, Gascon, Catalan, Corsica) or are surrounded historically by such languages (Basque Country) or more rarely by Germanic languages. These substrates give French spoken with the accent “about midday” or “Southerners” or accent Flemish, Alsatian etc
    These last shapes of French of the South different sufficient standard French so that the linguist No5el Nguyen distinguishes in fact two French: the northern french or French of north and the southern french or French of the south. In the southernmost French shape, distinguished by him by its phonological system with eleven vowels, it is before all the important modification of the prosody, more than that of the phonological system, which is actually detected by the not-linguists.
  3. With the periphery of this complex of French is the ultramarine French speeches 3 whose characteristics approach the languages with which they are in contact, African languages, Asian languages, Amerindian languages, and also creole languages resulting from French. These forms have in common with speeches 2 to have only eleven vowels (without damage of their diphthongs) even ten.
    Although located overseas, compared to the stock, French spoken in North America arose obviously from the first category, coming from the stock of the French language, and has vowel systems comparable but is perhaps attached by other phonetic features with the third by their long cohabitation with the English.

This static description, from the start rejected by certain authors as too normative, however would have been about justified for first half of the 20th century but really any more does not correspond to the current location of French, taking into account the modern diagrams of Migration.

The table would not be complete without speaking about the generalization of the intra-family linguistic “interbreeding”, which joins together in the same hearths of the parents themselves resulting or originating families resulting from zones different from the francophonie. The generations resulting from these hearths in general present accents standardized (parisianized) with regard to the prosody but very different from the phonological point of view, with a tendency to the adoption of the loosest standard phonological what leads to the appearance of French who is neither of the North nor of the South, but is simplified French.

The spoken language undergoes nevertheless a strong school, cultural and social pressure which, because of the absence of frame of reference clearly built, is based only on surface perceptions. In light in fact thus the accents (within the meaning of perceived accents) different from the standard accent are stigmatized, turned in derision, discredited.

It is noticed that certain singers, probably because they studied the rhyme, enriched their phonological system to approach standard French while preserving to the maximum their southernmost prosody.

Progression of simplified French

It is noticed that the computerized Treasury of the French language, an official site of CNRS gives today two pronunciations for the word my (which would be however Homonyme of but , mets ) whereas the Littré gave only one of them.

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