These speech tips are my Jamhuri present to you

First of all, I wish you a joyous and hope-filled Jamhuri Day. I have heard some young Kenyans wondering why we celebrate “Jamhuri” and not “Uhuru” Day on December 12.

Those of us who were there remember that independence came on December 12, 1963, but the British Queen remained our Head of State. Jamhuri Day came the following year, when we became a Republic (jamaa huria, totally free family) with Mzee Kenyatta as our President.

In celebration of Jamhuri, I am going to give you a present. After all, the season of giving and goodwill is already upon us and there is no harm in immersing ourselves in it. Did you hear of Margaret Keenan, the first British woman to officially get the anti-covid-19 jab, who described it as a present for her 91st birthday, which occurs next week?

Anyway, my present to you today is speech tips because this is what you wanted from me, going by your responses to my piece on the outlawing of discrimination based on people’s accents. The lawyers are yet to give their considered opinions, as their training urges them to guard against making precipitate statements. It is a virtue worth emulating.

Improve our speech

Those, however, who got back on to me pointed to three main points in my discourse. The first was that I was a bit theoretical and abstract, with ideas like glottophobia and Received Pronunciation.

Secondly, I did not quite specify who speaks what kind of English in Kenya, and why. Thirdly and most importantly, you wanted me to suggest some practical ways in which we can individually improve our speech.

I base my tips present on this last point. I noted from your responses that most of us are aware that we can all speak better, and we should, indeed, work systematically towards this noble goal.

The plain truth is that the way we speak profoundly affects every aspect of our lives, either positively or negatively. Secondly, however well you think you speak, there always is room for improvement.

If we do not often speak about this, it is because of a “people who live in glass houses” complex. We know that we all have our shortcomings somewhere, and we do not want to be the first to point fingers or wag tongues at people whose English speech “leaves you close to tears”. Yet speak we must, if things are going to improve. I believe this was the stand of my dear departed friend and colleague, Prof Duncan Okoth-Okombo.

Here then, for today, are four tips that might lead one towards a standard of acceptable speech, especially in public communication. Those of us in jobs like the law, teaching, broadcasting, preaching or politics need no reminders about the importance of this. But in this age of communication, the need for this accomplishment, or competence, stretches considerably further than the purely speech-based trades.

Stress and intonation

Our first tip is that we should master the models. This refers to the mechanics and techniques of speech, like pronunciation, stress and intonation. Our elementary English classes introduce us to these, but we have to make conscious and deliberate efforts to internalise them and make them habits in our speech. This is particularly important because the patterns of English, for example, often differ radically from those of our first languages or any other languages that we speak.

Fortunately, there are many handy and convenient guides to the mastery of these techniques. Major English dictionaries, for example, especially those online, give you not only spellings of words but also phonetic suggestions and voice recordings of the pronunciation. We would, therefore, have no excuse for not making a difference between our “f” and our “p”.

Let us listen to ourselves. That is our second tip. We are often told, justifiably, to listen to good standard speakers and try to imitate them. In my younger days, we considered the late Norbert Okare a very good model. Maybe Jeff Koinange would do very well for the present generation.

 But you will never know what you sound like unless and until you listen to your voice. With all the technology at our fingertips, why should we not make it a habit to record ourselves and listen back at least once a week?

Take your time. That is our third good speech tip. In simple and plain terms, we should never rush over our words. Relaxed, well-paced speech does not only show poise and confidence. It also gives your audience time to take in what you are saying.

Most importantly, from the speech point of view, it allows you the time to produce and execute the units of your utterances appropriately. Need we say more?

Our final tip, as far as English speech is concerned, is that you should never say what you see. It may sound strange, but the truth is that there is very little relationship between the way English words are written and the way they are spoken.

You should not assume that you can tell the pronunciation of a word from its spelling. Experts say this is because the spelling of English is very old and it has not kept pace with the pronunciation, which changes at a much faster pace.

In order to benefit from these tips, however, two attitude hurdles have to be cleared. The first is indifference. Lots of people, especially men, just do not care how they speak or what impression their speech makes on those around them. Closely related to this is the assumption that clear, articulate speech is just a nicety, a snobbish affectation by those who can afford to indulge in such luxuries.

Maybe I should now take my case to the august court of my friend Prof Charles Ong’ondo, the new Director of the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD). After all, he is himself an expert on competent English speech.

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