When you read something to yourself, do you hear the voice of the person whose work you are reading while you read it?
Essentially, if I read something I wrote or I am reading something I have never heard the voice of the person whose work it is of, it will sort of be in my own "thought-voice." That is, if some of you have heard me speak for a decent length of time, you may think I have a somewhat deep, slightly monotonous voice (at least that is what I have heard myself sounding like while recorded). But when I think to myself, my voice is actually a lot higher-pitched and not even remotely monotonous. I somewhat sound like a public speaker in my own head, if that makes sense.
But if I read something that someone else wrote, my thought-voice can essentially become their voice. For example, if I read Mitchell's comment it will be in his voice, Thomas' in his, Karisa's in hers, etc. It can actually be kind of funny if the person whose work I am reading has an awkward dialect.
Then I can have "generic" thought voices. If I read a fiction book, per se, and there is "voice" - i.e. someone talking - I will assign random thought-voices based on their age, disposition, and gender. If there are two people with the same qualities, I may slightly adjust the tone of one of them.
Do you have a thought-voice? Can you hear the voice of the person you are reading?
There is a label on my TV that says "Dolby Digital" which is the literature for this article.
Haha I know exactly what you're talking about. Like you, I also read in the voice of people I know, as in the comments. I am currently reading Harry Potter, and I always read in the voice of the characters. Maybe things like this are the reason I find reading more entertaining than movies in a lot of instances. My imagination fills in things like that, and my own interpretation plus the added detail of reading over watching make it more fun and longer lasting. Good blog Spencer, as usual.
ReplyDeleteI tend to do that too without realizing it. I don't perfer books to movies though only because the movies have special effects that I could never dream of in my life.
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