(written on 25 July 2024)
Hello! I’m Jingyun, or Jyn for short (it’s an acronym for Jingyun Ng). If you’d like to know more about me or Know Your Voice, visit this page first before reading this reflection (:
In this piece, I share my own reflection on getting to know my own speaking voice. Many of us speak or communicate through verbal sounds, and here’s a glimpse into my journey.
It was hard for me to speak without stuttering for a long time. I often stumbled over words, fluffing it to make it sound like what I heard from others or saw on the screen or paper before me. I don’t know if people noticed, but I thought they did and would be kind and not point it out. I felt like I didn’t know how to speak and it was terrifying when I was in school and the teacher would ask us to stand, to read a passage. It made me so nervous when it was nearing my turn, and I would revise the passage over and over, trying it out silently, mouth and tongue and jaw moving, eyes staring intently and intensely. It’s my turn. I stand up, and read. What is that word? What does it even mean? What did I just say. Move on. The next sentence. Thank you, next is index number 23.
Then came oral tests. An unseen passage, with only a minute or two to try it out. My mouth and tongue and jaw again felt uncoordinated, betraying my thoughts and intention. Move dammit. Searching for the words, the precision, the movement. I wish there were an easier way to read aloud. Why could others do it so easily?
I started choir. Singing, and doing languages I don’t speak nor could I read much. People around to shield my slip ups. A relief. Precision is still important but I could lean into the cushioning of other clearer speakers. Being around others who spoke eloquently helped me to learn the accents, melody, the cadences. I wished I could be like the older girls, leading the choir with confidence.
I started voice lessons. But the more I went, the heavier my voice felt.
You’re a singer, why aren’t you able to articulate well?
…I don’t know. If I don’t know how to learn, and I don’t know how to ask what I don’t know, how could I do it differently? Why aren’t you the teacher teaching me these?, I wonder. Maybe being coordinated is for the people who are born into families or environments of well-speaking adults. Or for people who were gifted with language skills. Maybe I wasn’t one of them.
I transferred into a specialised arts school. A voice student, I am. Well, supposed to be. I struggled still to utter my thoughts. These kids around me sound like they’ve been doing presentations and discussions for ages. How do I speak up and ask questions about the content if I’m so afraid of stumbling and fumbling, and that the teacher would not understand me? My mouth and tongue and jaw freeze up, get heavy, stiff, taut, fat, languid. Sometimes they move too fast, quicker than my brain can catch. I still wonder if people notice. And if they do, will they want to understand me? Or help me.
We have to do in-class presentations about ethics. And about literature. And about fallacies. Practice makes…better? Perfect? Well I’m practising and it’s not working. What am I doing wrongly? I hear that the sounds are wrong, not quite what others do, but I’m not sure what. The shape, the colour, the pitch, the crispness. I hear all of it, and I know how it could sound. But I’m not finding it in my mouth tongue jaw. I learn about the soft palate as a singer but how the hell does that work in speaking? I wish I could just sing and speak with tones and colours and images. That people would understand. That there was not an even-tempered diction to lean into, that would make me a good speaker or an excellent one. Just me, speaking.
There are more presentations. No more oral tests, but we’re told that for graduation we would need to do an unseen analysis of some text. Bringing words up left and right. And then pairing that with my boisterous vocal anatomy. I do well in writing and I’m surprised. I don’t really know what I’m doing. Winging it over and over. I present about the presence of first-person pronouns, and the vertiginous effect of vacillating narrative perspectives. Not to different from my life. I tried my hardest to read from the brief script I wrote.
It’s the second-person pronoun, you, your, yours—
—my teacher says. I’m afraid.
But, I listen and she’s encouraging and patiently walks me through all my stumbles.
For once I felt like I was supported. Guided. Each correction a gentle nudge towards showing that it’s not that I didn’t know, I just needed to match it to the right words and the right manifestation of it
Maybe I could get good at this. It was the first presentation where someone told me I had great ideas, and I knew what I could do to improve.
Specifically.
Somehow she understood me. My peers didn’t understand the topic, and said it was complex. Maybe I just needed to find the right people who would understand, who could guide me and teach me. Rather than try hard only by myself.
I grow. Another teacher in anthropology class tells me to rephrase my idea in another way. Chapter 14.
What does sign language enable the deaf Japanese women of the late 1900s to do? Yes it gives them communication. And what does communication give them?
I think. I find the words. I shape my mouth tongue jaw and utter—
connection. Belonging. Understanding.
Yes yes yes. I found it.
I continue growing. Confidence in finding words. Having time to make mistakes. I learn that my jaw can move in different ways. I’m 18 by now, and somehow I’m winging presentations even though I still feel stuck.