In a Manner of Speaking

Michael McAuliffe The May 2025 episode is the first to tackle the red-hot topic of artificial intelligence, or AI. Paul’s guests are speech-to-text specialist Michael McAuliffe and dialect coach Tanera Marshall. Paul, Michael, and Tanera, along with podcast co-producer Cameron Meier, discuss AI in the context of human speech in general but especially acting and singing. Michael, a linguist, brings AI knowledge to the conversation, while Tanera, by virtue of her being the dialect coach for The Brutalist, lends a unique perspective. It was The Brutalist that generated controversy by using AI to tweak the Hungarian-language dialogue of its actors. For more perspective on the film, see Cameron’s review and the videos toward the bottom of this page. Among the issues discussed are the definitions of AI, the technological achievements and current limitations of computer “intelligence” to alter the human voice, the future of dialect coaching and acting itself, the legal and financial issues involved with using actors’ voices to train AI models, the moral and practical differences between AI and older cinematic technological illusions (editing, looping, rear projection, green screen, CGI, motion capture, de-aging, etc.), and the use of AI in music. To demonstrate the latter, the episode includes a portion of a song that was recently created in AI. To hear that entire song, visit Suno. (Thanks to Filmapalooza, Duane Trammell, and Jahil Nelson for use of the song.) Michael McAuliffe is an adjunct professor in the Linguistics Department at McGill University, focused on creating and improving computational models to enable phonetic analysis of speech. He is the maintainer for the Montreal Forced Aligner, a tool that segments audio files into speech sounds based on a text transcript. His other research interests lie in how listeners adapt to novel speakers and accents, and phonetic analysis of dialects of English as part of the SPeech Across Dialects of English (SPADE) project. Also see the Montreal Forced Aligner. Tanera Marshall In addition to her previously mentioned achievements, Tanera Marshall is a senior editor of the International Dialects of English Archive, or IDEA. She is a voice and accent specialist in theatre, TV, and film, and an associate professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Theatre and Music. Her current and upcoming productions include The Brutalist, Train Dreams, Oh.What.Fun., Ann Lee, The Morning Show (season four), The Bear, and Chicago Fire. Recent credits include Hunger Games (2024), Asteroid City, Widows, Queen & Slim, Dungeons & Dragons, Fargo (season four), Station Eleven, Army of the Dead, Public Enemies, The Immigrant, and the Divergent series. Stage credits include Broadway tours of Hamilton, Billy Elliot, and Dirty Dancing, as well as productions at Steppenwolf, Court, and Timeline theatres in Chicago. For more information on Tanera, go here. And don’t forget to visit her page on IDEA. For a demonstration of the real-time accent modification mentioned in this episode, visit Krisp. Also check out Natural Reader, a company that uses AI to turn text into speech for films and audiobooks. Notta and ElevenLabs provide similar services. Related content: And for more perspective on Adrien Brody’s performance in The Brutalist, check out this interview on TikTok. (Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)The post Episode 88 (AI and the Human Voice) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

For April 2025, Paul is going solo, discussing one of his favorite topics: rhoticity, or how the letter R is pronounced in words. He addresses many aspects of how the letter is used in several accents and dialects but focuses mostly on how R is sounded before and after a vowel. And he compares rhotic with non-rhotic speech. For more information on the accents and dialects discussed in this podcast, visit this page. And to access Paul’s and Eric Armstrong’s rhoticity research, R and Its Articulation, go here. And don’t forget to visit the free IPA charts. Other podcast episodes addressing rhoticity include episode 1 (Shakespeare’s Original Pronunciation), episode 12 (The Australian Dialect of English), episode 22 (Received Pronunciation), episode 61 (Irish: A Language in Danger), episode 70 (How American English Got Its Start), and episode 78 (Transatlantic and Old Movie Dialects). And check out these related videos, the first from fellow dialect coach and IDEA editor Jim Johnson: (Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)The post Episode 87 (Rhoticity: Watch Your R’s) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

James Still The March 2025 episode of In a Manner of Speaking is the first to feature a playwright. Paul Meier discusses how playwrights hear their characters voices with Pulitzer Price-nominated James Still. Paul and James also discuss the art of playwriting in general and read from James’ plays A New World and The Heavens Are Hung in Black. James Still’s plays have been produced throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, South Africa, China, and Japan. His new plays include Everybody’s Favorite Mothers (workshopped with Launch Pad); The Cratchits (in America); Haunt Me (commissioned by American Blues); and a new commissioned play with Merrimack Repertory Theatre in Lowell, Massachusetts. James also directs, and next up is The Glass Menagerie at the Indiana Repertory Theatre. He is an elected member of both the National Theatre Conference in New York and the College of Fellows of the American Theatre at the Kennedy Center. He received the Otis Guernsey New Voices Award from the William Inge Festival, the Todd McNerney New Play Prize from Spoleto, and the Indiana Authors Award for Drama for his trilogy The Jack Plays. His plays have been developed at New Harmony Project, O’Neill Conference, Sundance, Seven Devils, Colorado New Play Summit, Launch Pad, Fresh Ink, and many others. He is a four-time Pulitzer nominee for his work in the theater and a five-time nominee for his work in television. He is an artistic affiliate at American Blues in Chicago and lives in Los Angeles. Like Paul, James has roots in Kansas, having graduated from the University of Kansas. For more information about James, see Wikipedia. And for more interviews with James, see the embedded videos below: (Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)The post Episode 86 (How Playwrights Hear Their Characters’ Voices) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

Spencer Lott Paul’s February 2025 podcast episode is his first to tackle the speech of inanimate objects, specifically puppets. But as you will see from this month’s guest, accomplished Sesame Street puppeteer Spencer Lott, they can be just as animated as any human. Spencer and Paul discuss puppetry and specifically the art of voicing the characters. They also dive briefly into the psychology of the craft, plus that of the related artform of ventriloquism. Spencer Lott started performing with Sesame Street in 2014. Some highlights include playing the letter K, a rockstar rock, and a head of cabbage named Kyle. In 2019, he originated the role of Samuel, Julia’s neurotypical older brother, and he is thrilled to be a part of Sesame Street’s autism initiative. Spencer’s other credits include John Krasinski’s IF, Saturday Night Live, Helpsters (Apple+), Disney’s The Muppets (50th Annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade), America’s Got Talent, SpongeBob As Told By… , Hello Tomorrow! (Apple+), Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, The Today Show, Good Morning America, Sesame Street’s 50th Anniversary Celebration, Once Upon A Sesame Street Christmas, The Puppy Bowl, Fraggle Rock (The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade) and the 2019 Kennedy Center Honors. Spencer helmed the team that recreated the iconic puppets from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood for the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (starring Tom Hanks) and was the lead puppeteer. Additional film credits include Hoodie (Palm Springs Shorts Fest), The Relationtrip (SXSW) and Clifford the Big Red Dog. Spencer co-wrote and directed the short puppet film Melvin the Birder, which was included in Heather Henson’s Handmade Puppet Dreams film series and received the 2014 PDN Photo Annual Award. He has received multiple grants from the Jim Henson Foundation for his original theatrical work, which has been presented at Dixon Place, HERE Arts, LaMama, Little Island, and Lincoln Center. He has performed at the Metropolitan Opera (John Adam’s El Nino) and on tour with the Avett Brothers. He spent a decade working as an actor, director, and creative producer for Trusty Sidekick Theater Company and is now a co-founder at Simple Mischief Studio, working on projects for HBOMAX, Paramount, Nickelodeon, Goodspeed Musicals and the band Phish. For more information on Spencer, visit MisterLott.com and SimpleMischiefStudio.com. This month’s episode is the first to feature an extended video segment. Watch here: The podcast includes snippets of several YouTube videos, referenced under the copyright doctrine of fair use. To watch the entire videos, see below: And for a more malevolent character, from the related world of ventriloquism, here is a clip from Dead of Night (1945), which birthed the movie subgenre of ventriloquist-dummy horror: Everybody Loves Raymond is copyright CBS, Sesame Street is copyright Sesame Workshop, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is copyright TriStar Pictures/Tencent Picture, and Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas is copyright Jim Henson Company/Henson Associates. (Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)The post Episode 85 (The World of Puppets) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

Arik Kershenbaum Welcome to the first podcast episode of 2025. To start off the new year, In a Manner of Speaking is doing something it’s never done. In all previous 83 episodes, Paul has focused on human speech. But this month, Paul and his guest, distinguished Cambridge zoologist Arik Kershenbaum, discuss the speech of animals. Kersenbaum is the author of the bestselling The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy. His latest book, Why Animals Talk: The New Science of Animal Communication, explores the communication of seven animals: wolves, dolphins, parrots, hyraxes, gibbons, chimpanzees, and humans. In addition to serving as the Herchel Smith Research Fellow in zoology at the University of Cambridge from 2014 to 2017, Arik was the postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis in Knoxville, Tennessee, from 2012 to 2014. Dr. Kershenbaum received a PhD in evolutionary biology and ecology from the University of Haifa, Israel. He is currently a college lecturer, tutor, and director of studies at Girton College, University of Cambridge. Below you will find video clips of Arik and other content related to this month’s topic. To visit his YouTube channel, go here. (Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)The post Episode 84 (“Why Animals Talk”) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

Jeremy Fisher Renowned singing and voice teachers, coaches, and authors Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher return to the podcast for the December 2024 episode to discuss Jeremy’s new book, Just How Boring Are You?, which examines how one can be a better podcast guest. Paul, Jeremy, and Gillyanne talk about pitch, tone, pace, passion, the musicality of speech, and many other aspects of podcast interviewing. The discussion, while often specific to the world of podcasts, has implications for public speaking and interviewing in general. Gillyanne Kayes Gillyanne and Jeremy, of “Vocal Process,” specialize in vocal technique and performance across many genres. A husband-and-wife team, they combine a deep understanding of the voice that comes from science knowledge, performance practice, and decades of experience. Gillyanne is a voice researcher, pedagogue, and coach, working with numerous artists in theatre, cabaret, and in the recording studio, while Jeremy is a national-prizewinning pianist, performance coach, and vocal educator. For their full bios, visit VocalProcess.co.uk. And to get Jeremy’s new book, go here. Gillyanne and Jeremy’s recent work includes the Online Learning Lounge, which offers more than 700 videos and vocal training resources for voice professionals. They are the authors of 12 books (five of them Amazon #1 bestsellers, including This Is A Voice (Wellcome Trust), Why Do I Need A Vocal Coach? (Canu Publishing) and Singing and the Actor (Routledge). Their One Minute Voice Warmup app (Android #1 and Apple #3) was featured in the UK’s leading computer magazine. Their podcast, This Is a Voice, is in the top 1 percent of podcasts worldwide, and they have an updated singing teacher accreditation program for 2025. Jeremy and Gillyanne previously appeared on episode 18 from July 2019 and episode 48 from January 2022. To listen to (and watch) their This Is a Voice podcast, visit YouTube and Apple podcasts. (Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)The post Episode 83 (“Just How Boring Are You?” Be a Better Podcast Guest) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

Karen Burgos Linguist Karen Burgos returns to the podcast for the November 2024 episode to discuss American and British dialects in popular song. She and Paul are joined by podcast co-producer and frequent guest Cameron Meier. They play clips from songs ranging from the first decade of the 20th century to today, analyzing the singers’ dialects. In many instances, singers’ dialects don’t match their speaking voices, while, at other times, the singers use dialect to either make a cultural statement or embrace their own regional dialects. Examples cited include older recordings of American singers, such as Billy Murray and Cole Porter, who used a Transatlantic dialect (learn more about that dialect on the July 2024 podcast); American singers who embraced their strong regional dialects (Robert Wilkins, Fats Domino, the Carter Family, Hank Williams); British singers who often employed an American sound (the Beatles, the Roling Stones, and many other groups from the 1970s); British singers who rebelled against the American sound and embraced their English roots (Herman’s Hermits, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, the Sex Pistols); British and American singers who embraced a soul, or American Southern, or African-American sound (CCR, Adele, Christina Aguilera); and a new wave of British singers who switch up their dialects (the Ting Tings, Charli XCX, Dua Lipa). Cameron Meier Karen previously appeared on podcast episode 70, from November 2023, to discuss the sound of Colonial American English. She is a freelance linguist, independent researcher, and founder of Ace Linguist, a truly valuable blog. Karen’s articles on “Indie Girl Voice,” “Colonial American English,” and “The PIN-PEN merger” have educated many netizens on the English sound changes of yesterday, today, and maybe even tomorrow. Her focus on historical linguistics, language in popular media, and sociolinguistics makes for insightful commentary on all matter of variation in the English language. To read her complete Dialect Dissection: Founding Fathers blog, click here. For more information about Cameron, who also serves as executive editor of the International Dialects of English Archive (IDEA), visit MeierMovies.com. Snippets of several songs are used in this episode, either by permission or under the copyright doctrine of fair use, strictly for dialect-analysis purposes. For the full songs, see the YouTube clips below. (And we’ve thrown in a couple of extra treats.) Watch Florrie Forde on YouTube, from 1934. For the Megan Boni Man in Finance TikTok clip, click here. And here’s another great vodcast on this topic: And check out this fascinating graphic from Peter Trudgill, suggested to us by Mark Dallas:   (Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)The post Episode 82 (American and British Dialects in Popular Song) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

Jacqueline Springfield Actor, director, and voice/dialect coach Jacqueline Springfield returns to the podcast for October 2024 to discuss voices of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. Paul and Jacqueline analyze snippets of 11 speeches, ranging in time from Booker T. Washington in 1895 to President Barack Obama in 2017, looking at dialect, content, and style. It’s a remarkable journey through not just pronunciation but American history. Jacqueline previously appeared on episode 43 of the podcast, from August 2021, to discuss heightened language and Black playwrights. She serves as assistant professor of acting and co-coordinator of the acting concentration in the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies at Kennesaw State University. Her dialect coaching credits include: the Alliance Theatre, True Colors Theatre, American Players Theatre, Synchronicity Theatre, Actors Express, the Kennedy Center, Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, the American Musical and Dramatic Academy (NY), and the Black Arts Institute at Stella Adler. Jacqueline holds a master of fine arts degree in acting from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and is a certified associate instructor of Fitzmaurice Voicework and an IDEA associate editor for the Southern United States. She is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA, and continues to work as a performer in film, television, theatre, and voiceover. The podcast features short, fair-use snippets of 11 speeches, in chronological order. You will find the speeches in their entirety below: 1. Booker T. Washington 2. E.B. DuBois 3. Mamie Till Mobley 4. Martin Luther King, Jr. Interview is copyright 60 Minutes/CBS News. 5. Fannie Lou Hamer 6. Malcolm X 7. Stokely Carmichael 8. Shirley Chisholm Interview is copyright Meet the Press/NBC News. 9. Jesse Jackson 10. Al Sharpton 11. Barack Obama (Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)The post Episode 81 (Voices of the Civil Rights Movement) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

David Crystal Podcast favorite David Crystal returns to In a Manner of Speaking for the September 2024 episode. The legendary linguist is back to discuss his new website, TraceThatPlace.com, which allows users to enter a British place name and learn all about its origin and history. You’ll also be able to hear the place’s (often bizarre, ambiguous) pronunciation. Billed as the site that allows you to explore “the story and sound of place names on the road signs and railway stations of Britain,” TraceThatPlace took David about three years to create. On this month’s podcast, he and Paul discuss not just the site but the fascinating etymology and evolution of place names. This is David’s sixth appearance on the podcast. His prior appearances: June 2018 (Episode 5): Pragmatics November 2019 (Episode 22): Received Pronunciation (RP) September 2021 (Episode 44): Let’s Talk September 2022 (Episode 56): Sounds Appealing September 2023 (Episode 68): English Through the Ages For more information about David, visit DavidCrystal.com and ShakespearesWords.com. And visit his YouTube channel. (Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)  The post Episode 80 (Trace That Place) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

Joel Goldes On the August 2024 episode of In a Manner of Speaking, Paul discusses dialect coaching with IDEA Associate Editor and successful dialect coach Joel Goldes. They focus on two of Goldes’ many projects: Come from Away, an award-winning musical set in Newfoundland, about the hospitality that Newfoundlanders afforded airline passengers stranded by the terror attacks of September 11, 2001; and The Woman King, a 2022 epic film directed by Gina Prince-Bythwood and starring Viola Davis. To learn about Joel, visit his IDEA page, or check out TheDialectCoach.com. For more information on Come from Away, visit Apple.TV.com, and to learn more about The Woman King, visit Wikipedia. and IMDB. And for prior podcast episodes that address similar topics, see May 2022 (Episode 52): How To Do Accents, with Edda Sharpe and Jan Haydn Rowles August 2021 (Episode 43): Heightened Language and Black Playwrights, with Jacqueline Springfield August  2020 (Episode 31): Foreign-Language Accents January 2020 (Episode 24): Dialect-Coaching Film & TV, with Jill McCullough October 2018 (Episode 9): Accents and Dialects, with Jim Johnson Joel visits the Anthony Gilardo Acting Studio: BUZZCast interview: (Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)The post Episode 79 (Come from Away) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.