The Subtle Art of Speech-Reading

“THAT subtile Art, which may inable one with an observant Eie to Heare what any man speaks by the moving of his lips.” ¹ In these words did John Bulwer, “sirnamed the Chirosopher,” describe the art of speech-reading of which I am asked to write; the assumption, I suppose, being that, since I make daily use of this “ subtile art,” I should know something about it. At first glance this certainly seems a reasonable assumption. But if I asked any hearing person to explain how he hears speech, he might find some difficulty in doing so. Now, I understand speech by eye, but find it as difficult to explain how I understand it. The more smoothly a piece of machinery runs, the less the operator knows or thinks about it. Who takes thought of the mechanism by which we see trees move, and become aware that the wind is blowing from the east to the west ? All we can say is that we know this by deduction from past experience. In the same way, it is by deduction from past experience that the hearing person comprehends certain strange tremblings and shakings of the vocal chords as speech, and the speech-reader comprehends certain movements of the lips as speech.

I think perhaps if I could remember having once heard, and the loss of my hearing, and the processes by which I learned a new method of communicating with my friends, I might have less difficulty in explaining how I acquired this method, and what is the nature of the obstacles I and all other students of the “ subtile art ” have to overcome. As it happened, however, I was so young when the severe illness which deprived me of my hearing occurred that I cannot remember ever having heard, or having been in a materially different position as regards articulation and speech-reading from the one I have occupied for many years. Of course, as a child, I could not have spoken and read speech as well as I did later, but I cannot recollect being conscious of any special difficulty in communicating with my friends. I do not even remember that the fact of my inability to hear was ever borne in upon me then. I knew it as one knows that the sun is shining or that it is cloudy, without its making any impression upon the mind. My strongest feeling as regards my position in the family was that I was eighteen months older than my next younger sister, and therefore very much wiser and more experienced.

I presume the reason why I can recall nothing of my first steps in speech-reading and articulation is due to the long period of mental and physical weakness which followed my illness. My mother says that for many months I expressed no interest in or desire for anything, and the baby speech I had previously possessed seemed entirely gone. During all this time she was working and planning, endeavoring by every means in her power to give me back the speech I had lost, and to make me read her lips. She talked to me continually long before I cared to talk back, and gradually, I suppose, both language and the ability to read speech came along with increasing mental and physical strength. To me it seems obvious that I must have learned to speak and read speech simultaneously ; for if I had learned the one art before or to a greater degree than the other, some impression would have been made on my mind which I should have remembered. However this may be, it remains true that my earliest recollections are of being able to talk, and of understanding what was said to me, at least sufficiently well to satisfy all my requirements. I recall no stormy outbursts of passion, such as I believe are too often consequent on inability in the deaf child to make his wants known. Looking back now, it seems to me that whatever method my mother and the young teacher who assisted her (Miss Mary H. True) pursued in my instruction, it must have been a true and natural one, simply because it has left no trace upon my memory. All natural processes of growth are gradual and imperceptible ; there are no violent shocks and sudden changes, such as leave their imprint upon the memory. It is the unnatural method of instruction which, by demanding unnatural and therefore painful efforts from the child, leaves marks of the work on his mind. This accounts, I believe, for my remembrance of one item in the plan of my instruction, — a daily drill in writing from dictation sentences which our teacher read from a book. I do not think that I objected very strongly to it, but it was most slow and irksome work, and I always recall it as the one lesson I did not like. Even today dictation of this sort is very irksome. It is no uncommon occurrence for my husband to talk to me perhaps for an hour at a time of something in which he is interested. It may be on the latest geographical discoveries, Sir Robert Ball’s Story of the Sun, the latest news from the Chinese war, some abstruse scientific problem in gravitation, — anything and everything. Very rarely do I have to ask him to repeat, and at the end I should be ready to back myself against almost any hearing person to give the substance of what he has said nearly word for word. But it is almost impossible for Mr. Bell to sit down and read to me a short paragraph from the simplest book, and have me understand him without very great difficulty and strain of mind and eye.

I have often wondered why this should be so, and have tried to detect where the difference came in, but without success, so slight is it and imperceptible. Mr. Bell is a good and expressive reader, yet there is a difference between his manner of speaking and of reading which makes all the difference between ease and difficulty of comprehension. What is true of Mr. Bell is true of every one with whom I have had communication. I am convinced, therefore, that the drill in dictation, so far from aiding, was a distinct hindrance to my learning to read speech.

With this exception, I do not think any special exercises were set to teach me speech-reading. I just grew into it naturally, as a hearing child grows into the knowledge of hearing speech, by perpetual practice. Every one spoke to me ; no one made signs, and I cannot remember making them myself or wanting to make any. I observed that whenever my mother had visitors, they talked to each other so rapidly that I could not understand them, and that I could not talk so fast myself; but I was quite satisfied that the ability to do both would come by and by with long dresses, and meanwhile my sisters and I played “visitors” and chattered gibberish as fast as we could, and were happy.

But while emphasizing the fact that my acquisition of speech-reading was a process of growth, to me perfectly natural, I would not be understood as claiming that no special efforts were made to teach me. Few children have had more care and anxious thought bestowed on the best means of instructing them, and I do claim that my mother and teacher, whether by accident or great wisdom and good judgment, fell upon what was for me the best method of instruction ; and the proof of this lies in the fact that I, the child, was conscious of nothing forced or painful in my growth into understanding.

I am not the best possible speech-reader, but this does not militate against the method employed, for reasons which I will explain later, when I come to describe the qualifications for speech-reading.

The method of instruction pursued by my mother and teacher, pioneers in a new world of effort as truly as Columbus himself. was essentially the same as that pursued with my hearing sisters with whom I was educated. At a very early period books were placed in my hands, and I became passionately fond of reading. I did not care to play and romp out of doors; all I wanted was to curl up in some quiet corner and read all day long, if allowed. My father’s library was well stocked, and I had almost free range. When eleven years old, I delighted in reading such books as Jane Porter’s Scottish Chiefs; and before I was thirteen I had read through, with intense interest, Motley’s Rise of the Dutch Republic, most of Prescott’s Histories, several large volumes relating to the civil war, and books of travel, as well as all the stories and novels I could get hold of. We went abroad for three years, and my mother made a point of giving me all the histories and historical novels she could find relating to the places we visited. I read through a good many books in this way. Carlyle’s French Revolution was the only book at which I rebelled ; and when I made a list of the words I could not understand. my mother did not insist, as they were pretty well beyond her own comprehension !

I have dwelt thus at length on this matter of reading, because upon the habit thus formed rests all my success in speech-reading.

I have looked back over my life, I have studied the mechanism of my speech-reading apparatus, I have thought carefully over all my experiences, and the result at which I have arrived is, that not only is success in speech-reading dependent upon reading, — or rather on the extensive and intimate knowledge of language imparted by reading, — but good speech-reading is impossible without it. Of all my mother and teacher did for me, the greatest gift was in their teaching me this love of reading, and giving me the means to gratify it.

“ The observant Eie can Heare ” part of what is said ; yet not only have Helen Keller and other blind children, by successfully substituting the fingers for the eye, proved that it is not so essential to the “ subtile art ” as our philosopher thought, but my own practice shows that the eye alone is quite incapable of interpreting correctly the various movements of the speaker’s lips.

The reason for this is clear, when we glance at the structure of the English language. Its consonants give form and character to speech, and are therefore the most important elements in its intelligibility, alike to those who depend upon the ear or the eye for comprehension. Unfortunately for the speech-reader, many of the labial consonants are distinguished from each other solely by sound, as m, b, and p, f and v, t, d, l, and n ; while gutturals, like g and h, are not only indistinguishable from each other, but can scarcely be seen at all. These are the sounds that form the basis of nearly all our words, and especially those in commonest use, like cat, mat, bad, fat, van, laid, lane, good, kind. It is impossible for the eye to distinguish between “ pan ” and “mad,” and even words apparently as unlike as “ Flushing ” and “ Fletcher ” present astonishing difficulties to the uninitiated. Then there are hosts of words, which, without being very much alike, are yet easily mistaken for one another in the haste of rapid speech.

Good eyesight, therefore, cannot alone surmount such obstacles to easy, rapid, and accurate speech - reading. There must also be, first, an intimate knowledge of the English language, especially in its vernacular form, so that a speech-reader shall have at command a large stock of words from which to select the right word used by a speaker. Thus, one with the requisite knowledge of English would not make the mistake of supposing that he was asked to wipe his feet on a “ man ” instead of a “ mat; ” while one without this knowledge would happen on the right word only by accident, “ man ” and “ mat ” looking alike to the eye.

Secondly, the habit of making the selection must be so well established as to be accomplished instantaneously, automatically, and without conscious effort.

Thirdly, the mind should be trained to perceive the meaning of what is said as a whole from perhaps a few words, or even parts of words, recognized here and there, as, “ This boy — cote ; brium — ote ” (This boy is cold; bring him his coat), and not allowed to waste time lingering over the words, trying to decipher them one by one.

The art of speech-reading, then, consists in the ability instantaneously to select the word used by the speaker out of half a dozen that resemble it, and rapidly to build up a correct conception of what he has said from occasional words distinctly recognized here and there in his speech; in other words, reading by context.

The more rapidly the speech-reader makes correct word-selections and perceives meanings as wholes, the more skillful will he be, and the more automatic and unperceived will be the act, so that it appears to him that he reads off the words mechanically, one by one. Yet that this is not always so I have repeatedly proved, when, after a friend has finished speaking to me, I have found my mind a complete blank as to what has been said. Then, before the word “ What ? ” was fairly out of my mouth, the whole sentence flashed into my mind, word for word, like a beam of light projected into darkness, as apparently without volition on my part as the distant flash from the lighthouse.

I do not assert that it is impossible to read speech, word by word, mechanically, from the speaker’s lips. That is quite possible, but it is the slowest, most uninteresting, and most difficult method of speech-reading, and is feasible only when the speaker articulates with unnatural slowness and deliberation ; and in reality it is no more accurate than the other, for, adding together the power of grasping meanings as wholes, and the habit of selecting the correct words from the knowledge of resemblances, the result, in good speech-reading, is the understanding of every word spoken as surely, and a hundred times more rapidly, than by mechanical word-by-word deciphering.

It has the further advantage of allowing the speaker to speak almost as rapidly and indistinctly as usual. For, as every one knows, few even of the most precise speakers give to each word its full value. Words are more or less slurred over and run together, so that really there are few properly pronounced words for the speech-reader to see. Consequently, if one is to go out into the world and read the ordinary careless half - uttered speech of the generality of mankind, it is necessary to cultivate the habit of going as straight as possible to the point, and bothering as little as may be about the exact words used. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred this is all that is required, or, I venture to say, is remembered the next moment by hearing persons. My practice is to allow a talker to go on with what he is saying, even if not one word is understood, in the hope that before the end a word or two may be recognized which will, as it were, throw a flood of light upon the whole speech, rendering previous words intelligible. In this way, it is often possible for me to understand the long story or speech of a person whose short remarks are hard to follow.

Strangers in general, and people unaccustomed to conversation with speechreaders, sometimes seem to think that the converse of this is true ; that they must talk in short, jerky sentences, using as few words as possible. Of course, this, by reducing to a minimum the number of words out of which a speech-reader may hope to cull a few with which to decipher the meaning, only increases the difficulty of comprehension. Words of many syllables are more intelligible than short ones, for the same reason that sentences as wholes are more comprehensible than single words ; there is more to take hold of. Ordinary questions and conversational remarks, being composed of a few words, and these few words of the shortest, fewest syllables, might be almost incomprehensible but for the natural expressions of the face which generally accompany them.

Hearing people depend on these facial expressions to an extent that is perhaps not realized, until some humorous fellow delivers himself of a joke with a perfectly serious face and in a flat voice. The very essence of the fun to him is to observe the bewilderment depicted on the faces of his hearers, the involuntary pause, hesitation, longer with some, shorter with others, before his meaning breaks upon them, and the laugh goes round. It is impossible to open a novel or biography, and hardly a daily newspaper, without coming across commendatory references to a speaker’s expressive face, the suggestive modulations of his voice, or complaints of the difficulty in following the ideas of a monotonous speaker. What does all this mean if not that hearing people, possessors of a language made by themselves, and by them adapted as perfectly as may be to their own convenience, yet find it necessary to invent some other method of making a speaker’s ideas clear ? They have invented the rising inflection of the voice for questions, a falling one for answers or assertions, till the fortunate beings can almost grasp the speaker’s remarks without the trouble of listening to his words. Every hearing person makes liberal use of frowns and smiles, the stern or the gentle mien, to enforce his meaning. So important is the proper use of these aids to comprehension regarded that schools of oratory have been established for their study, in which each inflection of the voice, turn of the head or hand, lifting of an eyebrow, receives due and careful consideration. And all this for the benefit of hearing people, with a language of their own making!

The speech-reader is, therefore, but following the usage of his hearing fellow in availing himself of the only one of these adventitious aids to comprehension open to him, namely, study of the expressions of the face. This study becomes quite as instinctive and unconscious with him as with hearing persons, and by its aid many obscure questions or short remarks are elucidated. For instance, one day some one said to me, “ Webetnorfrtnor.” For a moment I was completely nonplused ; it seemed impossible to make sense out of such utter nonsense ; but presently, seeing my friend glance at the further of two doors between which we were standing, it flashed on me that the words were, “ We better go to the front door.”

I can almost always tell by the speaker’s natural involuntary glance whether a question is asked or a casual remark made. I bend all my energies to master the question, and if I cannot understand it in one form, I beg that it be repeated in another ; the remark, if I fear a tussle to understand, I pass by.

Fancy the feelings of a shy, innocent stranger at seeing a speech-reader struggle laboriously to comprehend some careless remark about the weather ! How he wishes he had n’t said anything ; how quickly he edges off from the embarrassing person, and how carefully he avoids further conversation with her! How much better for the speech-reader to encourage him to talk on and on, until at last words are recognized to which the speech-reader can reply, and conversation becomes established !

If I needed proof that speech-reading is essentially an intellectual exercise, demanding good vernacular knowledge of language, I should find it in my experience with German. For six months I lived in a German boarding-school, with only one friend with whom to talk English. Before the end of that time I could read German speech by eye nearly as readily as English, and it was but rarely that any one had to write off a German sentence for me. This was many years ago. Since then my opportunities for talking and listening to German have been very few. I find now, when I meet a German friend and try to carry on a conversation in German, I cannot do it readily at first. I can put together a few German phrases to express my own ideas, but I cannot decipher the movements of the speaker’s lips. Why ? Because the German vocabulary at my command is too small to allow me to select from it words that may be those that my friend is using. I find myself consciously and painfully running over my small stock of possible words, much as a miser counts his store of coin, and the chances are infinitely against my finding the right one. This would be disheartening if I had not found by experience that by reading German books for a while, steeping my brains in German, as it were, so that I think in German and see in German, it becomes comparatively easy to catch the German words on my friend’s lips.

Many people have the notion that, in order to be understood by a speech-reader, they must speak more slowly and open their months more widely. Up to a certain point, and with some people, — not all, — I find it true that slower and more distinct articulation is an advantage ; but beyond that point slowness of utterance is a distinct hindrance to comprehension, while the unnatural opening of the mouth is almost prohibitive of conversation. In the first case, the speech-reader’s mind, accustomed to run rapidly, is apt to assume, either that there must be more words in each slow movement of the mouth than appears, and be thrown off the track, or, forced to linger over and study each word, forgets the previous ones, and, confused by a mass of details, fails to grasp the full meaning. In the second case, the widely opened mouth, showing parts of words not usually perceived, so changes their accustomed appearance as to render them unintelligible.

There are no two faces in the world exactly alike, and every person has his own peculiar way of speaking. In some the peculiarity is greater than in others, and the difficulty of comprehension is so much increased that at first it may seem utterly impossible to make head or tail of what is said. I am, however, inclined to believe that there is no speech so indistinct that a good speech-reader cannot master it after a while.

It would be hard to say what makes intelligibility to a speech-reader. A great deal of lip action may be difficult to understand, yet too little is equally detrimental. Again, the lip action may be good, and yet some peculiarity of tongue or teeth, or of pronunciation, may render the speech difficult to read. Mustaches, if not too heavy, make little difference one way or another, except at night under a hanging light, when of course they shadow the mouth. I think, take it all in all, that if there are no abnormal peculiarities of the organs of articulation, or of pronunciation, it depends principally on the speech-reader whether speech is intelligible or not. Practice makes perfect, and although I have met many persons whom I could not easily understand, I am not convinced that I could not have readily understood most of them in time, given the opportunity, and the desire, to become accustomed to their peculiarities of speaking. Besides, I am not as good a speech-reader as some I have met, and people whom I find difficult to understand they might find easy.

Bulwer’s “ art ” is as truly an art as any other. There are grades in it as in others, and special talents are required to attain great proficiency in it. An active, alert mind, constantly on the qui vive to receive impressions, keen as a razor in reaching the salient points of things ; bright, sharp eyes that see everything, and let nothing escape, are qualifications for attaining a high degree of proficiency in the art, and these I do not possess. The best system of education, without special talent, will not create a Michael Angelo, but it may make a very fair practical artist, who can do sufficiently good work to support himself and his family in comfort. So, without any special inherent fitness for speechreading, and with the distinct disadvantage of being short - sighted, I have attained skill enough to serve all practical purposes. My father and mother, my husband and children, relatives and friends, and my servants, all talk to me, and I, at least, have never felt that there was any bar to the fullest and freest communication between the immediate members of my family and myself. The occasions when one of them has to use paper and pencil are of the rarest; perhaps once a month, to spell some unfamiliar word or name. With less intimate friends and business people, communication, naturally, is much more restricted, and often I get one of my daughters to act as interpreter. I might, to be sure, use pencil and paper, but the strange part of my experience is that no one will take the trouble to write to me if it can possibly be avoided. If an interpreter is not at hand, the speaker will prefer to repeat again and again, until my patience is exhausted, and I insist on the pencil and paper, which, reluctantly used, are dropped the instant I show signs of understanding without them. This experience is universal. Ladies and gentlemen, tradespeople and servants, all regard writing as something to be avoided as much as possible.

My ability to read speech is of course the result of long training and practice. It must, however, be remembered that I had to begin at the beginning, and acquire both speech-reading and knowledge of language at the same time, and the process was necessarily slow. It takes, on an average, a year or two for a hearing child to acquire sufficient knowledge of language and familiarity with different vibrations to understand speech by ear. An older person, with a good book knowledge of a foreign tongue which he has never heard, if placed among people speaking it, can teach his ear to distinguish the different vibrations well enough to be able to understand the speech in a much shorter time. Exactly parallel is the case of a well-educated person trying to learn speech-reading. With Ids good knowledge of language, it should not, I think, take longer to teach his eye to comprehend the different movements of the mouth than to teach his ear the unfamiliar speech.

I believe that many of the processes that pass through the mind of the speechreader when understanding speech by eye also pass through that of a hearing person when understanding speech by ear. For instance, there are words which are used in a great many different senses, so that the ear alone cannot tell which is meant. It requires a knowledge of language and of word-selection to determine in which sense the word is used. A foreigner might find it strange that a gentleman should be proud of living in a country “ box,” or prefer a “ box ” at the opera to a comfortable stuffed seat. Again, he might he puzzled to know why a driver should require water from heaven (rain) with which to guide his horses (rein). Similarly, a speech-reader might be puzzled to know why a glazier should require greenbacks (money) with which to mend his windows (putty), “ money “ and “ putty ” being as much alike to the eye as “ rain ” and “ rein ” are to the ear.

A hearing friend has told me that he acquired his knowledge of speech-reading by “ watching the movements of a speaker’s lips, facial expression, and gesture, when a word or sentence was being spoken, and photographing these upon his memory, so that a repetition without sound would be instantly recognized.” Some of the members of my family read speech pretty well without having bestowed much pains on its acquisition. Yesterday I read a letter from a deaf lady, in which she speaks of the advantage her power of speech-reading proved in interpreting to her mother the wishes of an invalid friend, whose throat was paralyzed, so that she could not make herself understood by any one else.

It would not be hard to give good reasons why the art of speech-reading should be cultivated by persons who are not thrown in with those who are deprived of hearing. Speech-reading might be of advantage in the sick-room, where even the softest whisper is apt to be extremely annoying to a nervous invalid, as all the speech - reader may require is that the movements of the mouth shall be seen, — even the silent emission of breath required in a whisper being unnecessary. In crowded reception-rooms, where the incessant babble of many voices renders ordinary conversation a matter of difficulty, the ease of speech-reading, giving rest to overstrained voices and ears, would be a relief.

We Americans spend so great a portion of our lives in noisy railroad cars that this means of carrying on long conversations easily and comfortably amid constant noise needs only to be known to be appreciated. The advantages of hearing by eye are, however, much more obvious in the case of those with impaired or imperfect hearing. The eye becomes auxiliary to the ear, and by the aid of the two senses many advantages are enjoyed which it was formerly believed could be possessed only by persons with perfect hearing. Should deafness increase or the hearing be entirely lost, speech-reading remains as a means of communication.

I number among my friends a lady who, when I first, met her, was using along hearing-tube. Until after her marriage she had heard perfectly, but at this time deafness was coming on rapidly. Shortly afterwards she went abroad, and we heard that she had undergone an operation for the restoration of her hearing. When therefore she returned without her tube, and mingled freely and brightly in society, we supposed, of course, that the operation had been successful. Few, I believe, of those who meet her to-day are aware that she is absolutely without hearing, depending entirely upon her power of speech-reading for all her communication with the world. This she taught herself during the year that she was losing her hearing.

To those who cannot hear at all, the ability to read speech is indeed invaluable, making the difference between a full and happy life and a sad and isolated one.

Mabel Gardiner Bell.