Want My Attention?  
First, Say My Name Right!

Why & How to Teach Yourself & Others 

to Pronounce Names from Diverse Cultures

The phone rang. “Yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada kim yada?” was what I discerned from the fast flow of scripted discourse, delivered in a monotone without pauses, pitch changes, or expression.

Because of noise interference and my own hearing difficulties, all I got was the caller’s botched attempt to say my last name, KIRN. As often happens when marketeers try to read aloud from a list in lower-case type, it had been transformed from the four-sound pattern of /kirn/ to the three sounds of /kim/. Although the caller spoke English as a native language, I felt like the dog in this cartoon.

 
Unfortunately for the speaker, what was clear from his mispronunciation was that he was selling something (probably “home improvement services”) that I had no interest in. The rest of the conversation went something like this:

“Sorry, but I can’t understand you,” I responded, unwilling to divert attention from the point of the call to the effect of character spacing between letters on the printed page.

“Yada yada yada yada kim yada,” he continued, with hardly a breath or a reaction to my discomfort.

“I don’t understand the meaning of the words you’re saying,” I paraphrased, in an effort to get him to articulate more clearly, to use easily comprehensible “speech music,” or simply to slow down.

“You don’t understand me? But I’m speaking English in America,” he said, loud and clear this time. Then he banged down the phone, indignant that he was wasting his time on a confused, aging idiot.

Because it jumps out at them in fluent speech, listeners tend to hear their name before they grasp the point of a message sent in their direction. If the speaker's pronunciation is fractured or garbled, the point that comes across may be “Even though I want something from you, I don’t know or care enough about you to even get your name right!” The exchange is likely to go downhill from there.

Coincidentally, the same day we received a message from a member of the LinkedIn Professionals’ Group called “Instructional Design & e-Learning.”

"Hello Everyone, I’m in the initial planning stages of a training that would assist call-center employees with pronunciation of names from diverse countries of origin. I’m curious to know if anyone has experience with this type of training. I'd love to hear recommendations for tools . . ."

Beth G’s posting reaffirmed my suspicion that correct (or at least clearly comprehensible) articulation of someone’s name could be critical to success in sales, work, or business situations. It follows that genuine curiosity about or attention to people’s names (and, by extension, to listeners themselves) can have real benefits in oral communication in many areas of life. 

Further, Beth’s request prompted me to recall (and dig up handwritten notes about) a lesson designed to help myself (the instructor) and college ESL students from various language backgrounds to pronounce one another’s names comprehensibly. Eventually, I hoped, we might even say the names correctly, learning a little about articulation features of other languages in the process.

Lesson purposes were [a] to set up a welcoming, interactive course atmosphere by helping everyone feel comfortable about addressing one another by name, and [b] to introduce the fundamentals of effective pronunciation (speech clarity)—the concepts of syllables, stress, rhythm, and tone—in the very first hour of an intermediate-level oral-skills course. A third benefit would be [c] to pave the way for later lessons focusing on English sounds, perhaps inviting comparison with those of other languages.

I started with a grid on a board (in those days, green and markable with chalk, now replaced by white or smart boards, computer-screen projections, and a lot more technology). It had a numbering system for the most common syllable-stress patterns in names, visual representation of these through dots of different sizes, intonation lines, and variously-sized and arranged lower– and upper-case letters spelling typical monikers that fit the nine or more distinct patterns. It looked something like the following:

 

The point of such notations was to offer different ways of visualizing the pronunciation of sounds in syllables. They were meant to incorporate the principles and practices of Dr. David Allen Stern (the “Step System of American Speech Music”), Judy Gilbert (renowned author of “Clear Speech”), Ann Cook (“American Accent Training”), Marsha Chan (energetic workshop presenter) and other experts in comprehensible pronunciation or accent. They even invite kinesthetic techniques, like counting syllables with beats, stretching a rubber band to “feel” vowel lengthening, “drawing” pitch with the hands in the air, etc.

Next, on large cards, I showed five of the parts of my own “full and legal” name, which illustrate a variety of one– to three syllable patterns common in American-English or Germanic names: 1, 2a, 2b, and 3a.  Pointing and  gesturing, I indicated the “meanings” of the various symbols, visuals, and letter arrangements, including the skewed placement of the letters in each name part. As class members repeated my pronunciation and later practiced “reading” these signs aloud, they got the idea of how one might represent the pronunciation of names (and other words) visually. 

Participants received cards on which to draw and print the parts of their names, using (elements of) any one or more of these visual systems—or even inventions of their own. They used heavy, colored markers. 

Everyone’s card sets were then used in activities common for first-day intros and activities: a (first, middle, last, maiden) name chain, mini-speeches about names that clarified pronunciation, etc. Later in the course, these beautifully designed visuals were converted into large, durable name tags or name plates to help with identification and memory. As needed, the visual representations were used as examples of relevant speech features in pronunciation of vocabulary items or accent acquisition lessons.

Here's a free copy of a four-page handout for teachers and learners called "If You Want My Attention, Say My Name Right."

Of course, the important larger-than-sounds features of American-English speech may or may not exactly correspond to native-speaker pronunciation of names in diverse cultures. In addition, individual sounds, voicing, sound linking, reduced forms, and the like may differ in various languages. Even so, if call-center employees, customer-service providers, or just “regular language learners” are speaking English in their daily work and life, understanding syllable stress, intonation, rhythm, etc. may help them to address and talk to (potential) customers and others comprehensibly—or at least to avoid embarrassing mistakes. Before attempting to say a new or “strange” name aloud to its owner, they can mentally put it into one of the categories on the chart (1, 2a, 2b, 3a, 3b, 5c, etc.), attempt its articulation, and have their effort assessed by listeners familiar with the relevant language.

And there are a lot of valuable “spin offs” from lessons of this kind. As I looked up common names from various cultures to include in my grid, I learned quite a lot about their pronunciation. I remembered that most names (and words, too) in English have only two or three syllables, with primary stress on the first or second; many items emphasized on the last syllable are derived from French or Spanish. Multi-syllable names of four or more syllables tend to alternate stress; even those with one main accent have  secondary stress on every other two or three of the remaining syllables.

It was not only fun but also fascinating to read and absorb this information. Another way to teach language students about names is to have them do comparable research on the web and to report to the group what they have learned. And another desirable outcome of focusing on names (not only those of people but also of places, events, groups, etc.) is to teach and learn about history, geography, culture, and other valuable content areas.  

Of course, there are audio programs that can help in this regard as well. And most Authors & Editors oral-skills products, such as Beginners' Before Speaking with Pronunciation Principles and Pronunciation Practice include features of speech like syllable stress, intonation, tone, rhythm, pausing, and the like.