Date:  Mon, 26 Jan 1998 10:08:09 -0500
From:  Herb Stahlke <hstahlke[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GW.BSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Almost about dialect -Reply

I recall, a long time ago, a conversation with Ken Pike in which he
described taking a series of voice lessons just so that he could learn the
impressionistic terminology that voice teachers use. His point was that
they had a long and effective tradition of teaching with phonetically
fanciful terminology. If I'm not mistaken, his conclusion as to why it
worked had to do with the fact that they also demonstrated what they
meant, not that the terminology was intrinsically effective. Many voice
teachers today have a basic grasp of the physiology and anatomy of
voice production, but they still use the same vocabulary because it's so
deep in their traditions, and, of course, their students tend to have had
no phonetics.

Herb Stahlke