1. Emphasis, as the term is used in its restricted signification, is the special force or energy of voice applied to words in order to give prominence to leading ideas. 2. In its widest signification, however, emphasis is used to include any means of distinguishing words, phrases, or clauses, whether by means of force, or inflection, or stress, or quantity, or pauses. 3. A word may be made emphatic by an intense whisper; by a strong rising, falling, or circumflex slide; by prolonging vowel or liquid sounds; or by rhetorical pauses. 4. As commonly used, however, emphasis relates to the degree or intensity of force. But the stronger the emphatic force, the longer are the slides, and the more (57) prolonged the vowel and the liquid sounds. It may here be remarked that the liquid sounds capable of being prolonged in emphasis are l, m, n, and r. The short vowel sounds and the consonant sounds, with the exception of l, m, n, r, cannot be prolonged in emphasis. 5. "Every sentence," says Prof. William Russell, contains one or more words which are prominent, and peculiarly important, in the expression of meaning. These words are marked with a distinctive inflection; those, in particular, which illustrate the reading of strong emotion, or of antithesis. 6. "The words which are pronounced with peculiar inflection, are uttered with more force than the other words in the same sentences. This special force is what is called emphasis. Its use is to impress more strikingly on the mind of the hearer the thought, or portion of thought, embodied in the particular word or phrase on which it is laid. 7. "It gives additional energy to important points in expression, by causing sounds which are peculiarly significant, to strike the ear with an appropriate and distinguishing force. It possesses, in regard to the sense of hearing, a similar advantage to that of relief,' `or prominence to the eye, in a well-executed picture, in which the figures seem to stand out from the canvas. 8. "Emphasis, then, being the manner of pronouncing the most significant words, its office is of the utmost importance to an intelligible and impressive utterance. It is the manner of uttering emphatic words which. decides the meaning of every sentence that is read or spoken. 9. "A true emphasis conveys a sentiment clearly and forcibly to the mind, and keeps the attention of an audience in active sympathy with the thoughts of the speaker; it gives full value and effect to all that he utters, and secures a lasting impression on the memory." II. FAULTS IN EMPHASIS. In animated conversation, most persons emphasize correctly because they know clearly what they wish to express; but, in reading the long and involved sentences of literary composition, the faults of untrained readers are numerous. 1. Sometimes the emphasis is misplaced because the reader does not clearly comprehend the sense of what is read. 2. Sometimes the emphasis is applied at random, without reference to prominent ideas. 3. Sometimes the untrained reader reads in a dull, monotonous tone, without any emphasis whatever. 4. Not unfrequently the pupil overdoes the emphasis, and reads in a jerky, dogmatic manner. 5. There is often a tendency to a regular recurrence of emphasis, combined with the falling inflection, on random words, particularly at the end of every line of poetry, or of every alternate line, or at the end of every phrase or clause. III. GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF EMPHASIS. 1. Words or groups of words that express leading ideas are emphatic; those that express what is comparatively unimportant, or that merely repeat what has been previously stated, are unemphatic. 2. Words expressing contrast of ideas are emphatic. 3. The subject and predicate of a sentence are, in general, emphatic. 4. Articles, pronouns, and connectives are, in general, unemphatic, though any part of speech may sometimes become emphatic. 5. The emphatic words of a sentence are generally the words most strongly marked by the rising, falling, or circumflex inflection. |