What does your diction say about you?

Many believe that people with poor diction are not educated. After all, it is in elementary school that we learn to use the dictionary. If you’ve ever used the dictionary, you know that the dictionary not only gives you the meaning of the words, but also shows you how to pronounce the word. So you can learn the correct pronunciation of a word by opening a dictionary. However, there are people who may have difficulties with the correct production of a sound. These people know the correct spelling of the word and how the dictionary plus divides the word, but they cannot correctly pronounce the sounds or phonemes of the word. This can make the conversations of the interlocutors unintelligible and difficult to follow.

If you are having trouble saying a sound in a word correctly, you may need to have a speech-language pathologist teach you speech.

In the American English language there are 26 consonant sounds and 17 vowel sounds. Most consonant sounds are found in the beginning, middle, and end positions of words. So if you are having trouble producing a sound that is in all three word positions, your diction will be slightly distorted. Now imagine that if you have difficulty saying more than one sound correctly, your speaking skills may impede your career advancement, prevent you from dating the person of your dreams, or hinder your social skills. Poor diction can present a social stigma.

Learning to combine sounds into words can be difficult, but with the help of a human communication specialist, such as a speech-language pathologist (SLP), you can improve your speaking skills (speaking skills). An SLP can help you improve your speaking skills to their optimal performance level.

Training the ear to hear sound is called auditory discrimination. Often times, people who say sounds incorrectly can have a hard time hearing the correct sound. Therefore, ear training is a necessary first step.

Once you can hear the sounds in words, phrases, sentences, and conversational speech, then it’s time to move on to learn the correct production of the specific sounds. A speech-language pathologist may have several techniques, such as tactile, visual, and auditory cues, to help you improve your diction.

With motivation, enthusiasm, discipline, and tenacity, you can improve your diction to communicate effectively with colleagues and authority figures within your environment. And if you are an authority figure, you will increase your credibility.

Improve your “first impression” by improving your diction.