Get A Better Broadcast, Podcast and Voice-Over Voice: 0300 – 8 – Beware of Potential Intonation Confusion on Steno.fm

Get A Better Broadcast, Podcast and Voice-Over Voice

0300 – 8 – Beware of Potential Intonation Confusion

October 26, 2021 6:01pm

2021.10.27 – 0300 – 8 – Beware of Potential Intonation Confusion

We have already seen how colouring different words in a sentence leads to a change in meaning of that sentence.

Therefore, if you colour the wrong word, the meaning of the sentence becomes wrong too.

In 2021 there was a lack of lorry drivers in the UK which hit distribution companies and threatened to lead to higher prices for products and stock shortages. It was suggested this was because of the Coronavirus pandemic and the results of Brexit. It led to this report on BBC news.

Where have all the lorry drivers gone? A shortage of drivers has been blamed by among others, the German confectionary giant Haribo, for problems delivering its sweets to shops in the UK. [1]

In the light of what we have learnt so far, let’s look at the words to lift here:

· Lorry drivers – this is the start of the story and so this phrase is new information

· Shortage – a lack of drivers has already been suggested by the first sentence of the story, so the colour on this word needs to be slight rather than significant

· Blamed – this is new information and as the sentence progresses you see that it is the point of the story

· German confectionary - new information, so these words need to be lifted

· Haribo - new information, so these words need to be lifted

· for problems delivering its sweets – this information has already been implied by what has gone before: a shortage of lorry drivers (who deliver things), a confectionary company (sweets) – so none of this needs to be coloured

· to shops in the UK – we only need to lift UK here to contrast with Germany and highlight that it’s a problem in the UK and not where the company is based.

It is illogical to lift the word its - and yet that is what the reporter did: problems delivering its sweets to shops in the UK.

But in doing this it gave the impression that Haribo also delivers sweets for other companies, and that the shortage of drivers only affected deliveries of those brands and not Haribo’s, which was incorrect.

So, a mis-placed stress can be confusing and misleading.

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Contacts: https://linktr.ee/Peter_Stewart

Peter has been around voice and audio all his working life and has trained hundreds of broadcasters in all styles of radio from pop music stations such as Capital FM and BBC Radio 1 to Heart FM, the classical music station BBC Radio 3 and regional BBC stations. He’s trained news presenters on regional TV, the BBC News Channel and on flagship programmes such as the BBC’s Panorama. Other trainees have been music presenters, breakfast show hosts, travel news presenters and voice-over artists.

He has written a number of books on audio and video presentation and production (“Essential Radio Journalism”, “JournoLists”, two editions of “Essential Radio Skills” and three editions of “Broadcast Journalism”) and has written on voice and presentation skills in the BBC’s in-house newspaper “Ariel”.

Peter has presented hundreds of radio shows (you may have heard him on BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 4, Virgin Radio or Kiss, as well as BBC regional radio) with formats as diverse as music-presentation, interview shows, ‘special’ programmes for elections and budgets, live outside broadcasts and commentaries and even the occasional sports, gardening and dedication programmes. He has read several thousand news bulletins, and hosted nearly 2,000 podcast episodes, and is a vocal image consultant advising in all aspects of voice and speech training for presenters on radio and TV, podcasts and YouTube, voiceovers and videocalls.

The podcast title refers to those who may wish to change their speaking voice in some way. It is not a suggestion that anyone should, or be pressured into needing to. We love accents and dialects, and are well aware that how we speak changes over time. The key is: is your voice successfully communicating your message, so it is being understood (and potentially being acted upon) by your target audience?

This podcast is London-based and examples are spoken in the RP (Received Pronunciation) / standard-English / BBC English pronunciation, although invariably applicable to other languages, accents and dialects.

Music credits:

"Bleeping Demo" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/7012-bleeping-demo