In honor of Michelle Yeoh's 2023 Oscar for Best Actress (the first time it has been won by an Asian), I want to share with you how I listen to people's individual speech patters, or idiolects.

Specifically, I point out pronunciation or articulation differences between how Michelle Yeoh and I speak.

I show you how to listen and notice differences in your jaw, tongue, and lips when producing vowels, voicing using your vocal folds, Rs in different accents in English, Regular Ls vs Dark Ls, how much air comes out in your plosive sounds (P, T, and K), syllable stress, linking sounds together, and how some consonants blend together or might form something new.

There are two other things that aren't related to pronunciation that we can notice in Michelle Yeoh if we listen for them: her placement (head voice) and her oral posture.

Michelle Yeoh's Idiolect

And today we're gonna talk about something that is a little bit more personal. So it's not about how we speak or how they speak, but it's more about how I speak and how you speak and how she speaks. And when we talk about a specific way an individual speaks, we're talking about their idiolect. An idiolect is just one person's particular accent, right? And it goes with how they've been speaking for years, where they've traveled to, who's in their life. All of their experiences roll into this. And so with Michelle Yeoh, she has such a unique background that I thought we could take this moment in time to analyze how she speaks and what she's actually doing with her jaw and her [00:01:00] lips and her tongue, and her vocal folds as well.

We're gonna talk about vowels. We're gonna talk about voicing. We're gonna talk about the amount of air that comes out. We're gonna talk about connected speech. All of those things we would consider pronunciation or the very, the very details of our accuracy in our speech, how we move our tongue, our lips, our jaws.

All of those things. And there's a couple of things that we also wanna talk about that are not necessarily pronunciation, and we're gonna put those into Voice, right? And they're a little bit more intangible, but I want you to listen to two extra things. You know whenwhen somebody speaks and you just know their voice, right?

What I mean is what we call oral posture, right? We can see the jaw, but we can't see so much the tongue muscles in another person. It's a little weird. We can't see their vocal folds, we can't see inside how much they're breathing, but we can see their mouth. So if anything, you can see how somebody holds their mouth.

If it's tight, if it's loose, if it's low, right? You might be able to see if somebody's tongue is more forward, if they keep their tongue back, right? How are their lips? Are they, are they kind of constantly smiling? That might make their vowels a bit tense. So our oral posture is something that we can only see a bit of, but we can, we can hear it, we can feel it. We can notice it.

So notice Michelle's oral posture and how she holds her mouth versus how I hold my mouth when I'm speaking. So after years, that's gonna give us a posture. The same way we have a posture of when we walk, when we sit in a chair,All of all of those things we can notice about a person.

So I know that I use a chest voice most of the time. When I say chest voice versus head voice, I meanthe resonance that you hear. Is it echoing in this smaller space or is it echoing in this bigger space? And it's not just head and chest voice, right?

People can have other voices. It can be mixed; they can have a throat voice. You can have kind of a, a masky voice. A nasally voice. It depends on where that sound is bouncing around. So listen to Michelle Yeoh's resonance as well, or what we would call her placement. She has more of a head placement than I do.

Totally fine. Just different, different than me.

Both of these things are kind of big issues, right? Placement and also oral posture. So I'm gonna do a whole episode on each of those. But for now, just see if you can pick up on it. Just see if you can hear what I'm talking about, if that makes a little bit of sense to you. Mostly though, today I want you to listen to how her pronunciation is.

Because why? Because you can feel that and you can do that, and you can practice that with me.

So let's listen to Michelle Yeoh's idiolect. We're gonna go line by line and see what we can hear. And I wanna think about how I personally speak, my idiolect, and how she personally speaks. And let's see if you can hear the difference and if you can even produce the differences. So we're gonna start with the first line.

Bianca: Think about a couple of different things, right? Her ss at the end of a word. For example, boys. That's unvoiced. If you put your hand on your throat, you can feel there's, there's no vibration. S as in snake: boys and girls

Michelle Yeoh: boys and girls

Bianca: little boys and girls.

Michelle Yeoh: little boys and girls

Bianca: There might be a little bit of voicing on the boys /zzz/ just a little bit, and for me, it's either on or off. It's either voiced or it's unvoiced. Right? And it's hard to tell because the letter S at the end of a word. You might not know if it's supposed to be pronounced S like a snake, /s/ or Z, like a zebra /zzz/.

Bianca: boys and girls. Boys and girls. See if you can do both ways.

Boys, boys, girls, girls. See if you can control how you vibrate those vocal folds or vocal chords. You can feel it with your hands. A couple of other things in here. Let's keep listening.

Michelle Yeoh: Thank you. Thank you. For all the little boys

Bianca: and girls, just before she says boys and girls, she says /fɔ/ /fɔ/ and the R there isn't as strong as I might make it. You know, Americans are pretty famous for our, for our, for our RAs , we AmeRRRicans, we most of the time pronounce our Rs, especially at the end. So there's some other varieties of English or different accents in English where that might not be the case.

So, don't mistake one for the other. Let's see.

Michelle Yeoh: For all For all For all

Bianca: For all, for all, for all. You can hear. She's gliding. Those vowels. The the /o/ and the /ɔ/ . She's got two slightly different vowel sounds and she's gliding between them. She's not linking an R. It would sound like this rawl, rawl, and there's no rawl in there. I would, I would put that R in there and I would link it up, but Michelle, Yeoh doesn't. So let's see what else we can notice here in her accent.

Michelle Yeoh: This is the beacon of hope and possibilities.

So you think, oh, well here's the word, t h i s. It should be this, right? Yeah. It doesn't follow the rule only because that would be confusing with the plural of these. So, I do it like this. This like a snake. This is, this is, this is my house. This is my car. This is. Again, try to turn off and on those vocal folds and get control over them.

Let's listen again.

Michelle Yeoh: This is This is This is

Michelle Yeoh: This is the beacon of hope and possibilities.

Bianca: Here, I wanna point out a couple of things. The first one is that S/Z thing again, the second one is how she does her vowels and how I do my vowels.

So, it can be really, really tricky. When your brain sees the letter O, sometimes, depending on your first language, it's just gonna think, /o/ /o/ , and it might just be one sound, even though for me it's, it's two. If I'm gonna make that, /o/, sound, I'm gonna make, /ou/, I'm not gonna make, /o/, usually, /ou/ /ou/ /ou/.

And that's the example. In the first word, hope. Hope you can feel your jaw move. Or I should say, if you feel your jaw move, that means you're doing a diphthong, you're actually doing two sounds. Oh. Hope. Hope and it might be a little tighter or more relaxed. You can tell that hers is much more relaxed.

Michelle Yeoh: hope hope hope hope

/houp/ /houp/ /hoʊp/ /houp/. So it's a little bit shorter in duration. And also you can tell her lips are a bit relaxed. And then the next one, the next word that has an O in it, letter O. It doesn't sound like, oh, it doesn't sound like that diphthong at all, whether short or long. Listen to that word again, possibilities.

How did she say it? I say /pɒ/ /pɒ/ /ˌpɒs əˈbɪl ɪ tiz/. She says

Michelle Yeoh: possibilities possibilities possibilities

Michelle Yeoh: possibilities

Bianca: /p/ /pɔ/ /pɔ/.

Another vowel in that word is commonly different for people in different accents, and that's the second I.

The second I, she says /bəl/ /bəl ɪ tis/. And I say, /bɪl ɪ tiz/, So it's / ˌpɒs ɪ/ / ˌpɒs ɪ/ / ˌpɒs ɪˈbɪl/ / ˌpɒs ɪˈbɪl/. For me, those two are the same /ɪˈbɪl/ /ɪˈbɪl/, but for her it's gonna sound like

Michelle Yeoh: possibilities

Bianca: /bəl/ /bəl ɪ ti/ /bəl ɪ tis//pɔs/ / pɔs ə bəl ɪ tis/ /bəl/ /bəl/ /bəl/. What's the difference there between /ɪ/ and /ə/?

/pɒs ə bɪl ɪ tiz/ /pɒs ə bəl ɪ tiz/ /bəl/ /bəl/ /bəl/. It's what we would call a Schwa, if you've ever heard that name, Schwa /pɒs ɪ/ /bəl/ /bəl/ /bəl/. Schwa is like the number one sound in English, right? And it's hard to tell where to put the Schwa sound because it's spelled with letter A, letter E, letter I, letter O, letter U, /pɒs ə bəl ɪ tiz/ /əl/ /əl/. I wouldn't say that. /pɒs ə bɪl/ /pɒs ə bɪl ɪ tiz/. That's how I would say it. But again, we've had different influences, right? Everyone's gonna know exactly what she's saying, but it's just a little bit different. So I wanna take this moment to analyze how somebody speaks and show you what you can pick up if you just know what to listen for.

Michelle Yeoh: This is proof that dreams dream big and dreams do come true.

Bianca: Notice again the S and Z thing. We've got dreamS versus dreamZ And this is again, right? This is. Another thing we notice besides Ss and Zs, right? Vowels are slightly different. Just a little bit though. And it could be the jaw. It could be the lips. It could be the tongue. But also, here's another thing we haven't talked about before, /p/ and /t/ and /k/. The explosion of air that comes out of your mouth. It can be a little more air, it can be a little less air, right? Depending, at least for me, where the sound falls in the word. If that's at the beginning or the middle or the end, what's directly after it? In this case, we have a a P and an R /pr/ /pr/, and we have a T in an R /tr/ /tr/. What's the difference between a /t/ and a /d/? It's the same thing.

So if you put your hand in front of your /t/ /t/ /d/ /d/.

You can feel that when you're vibrating, less air is gonna come out. Right? So there should be a difference there. So just kind of notice. The Ps and Ts and Ds at the beginning, before an R in her sentence and me, I'm gonna say them a couple times. P proof, proof, proof.

Michelle Yeoh: proof proof proof

Bianca: We're pretty close in the amount of air that we do.

Look at this one.

Michelle Yeoh: dreams dream big, dreams dream big, dreams dream big

Michelle Yeoh: dreams dream big, big, big, big

Bianca: Look at the B in big Bababababa the same thing. We've got /p/ /p/ /b/ /b/. What's the difference? Nothing in your mouth, just in your vocal folds. Bababababapapapapapa. Bababababapapapapapa. If you put your hand in front of your mouth, you can feel that there's more air when there's nothing else there. The other difference is this b has a vowel next. So, I can get a little bit more air out of there. Babababa big. Babababa big versus br br brown. You might feel a slight difference in the air that's released in the B, depending on if there is a vowel or a consonant next. So being really, really minute about these things, let's listen to proof and bababa big.

Bianca: It's almost like she devoices it a little bit instead of bababa big. Again, it's not that the voicing isn't there, it's just very small. So it's, it's getting closer to the word pig, right? Bababa big, papapa pig. Big pig. Big pig. But there's some mixing, so for me, voicing is either on or off and for Michelle, yo, sometimes it's, it's a little bit there.

Last one. The T and the R together /t/ /t/ . True. True. And again, just like /dʒ/ /dʒ/ /dʒ/ dreams is coming like a /dʒ/ /dʒ/ /dʒ/ juice. Tr True Is merging a little bit to become a /tʃ/ /tʃ/ sound is in chocolate.

Michelle Yeoh: true, true, true

Bianca: Same for me too. True, true, true. It's becoming more like a CH sound these days. Right? Notice how much air she's putting out.

Michelle Yeoh: true, true true,

Bianca: Ah-huh. So we talked about final S As and Zs. We talked about some Rs . And we also talked about vowels. So what did you notice there? Let's listen again. Look at the S in ladies. Look at the O and don't. Look at where she says, tell you you are ever.

And then we've got some give. Give up. Never give up. This is very interesting. Listen again.

Bianca: What did you notice there? LadieS/ LadieZ, perhaps, uh, /dount/ /doʊnt/, um, tell you you are ever. You are ever. Here's something interesting past.

I would say, /æ/ /æ/ my tongue is very far forward, /æ /æ/ past, but she says /a/ /a/ past a little bit more towards the middle. Her tongue is back farther than mine.

Michelle Yeoh: Never give up, Never give up, Never give up

Bianca: Her R is barely there. Right? Never give up. Never /rg/ /rg/. I would blend those two words and say, /rg/ /rg/ never give, never give, neve- give, neve- give. You can hear how that R is nearly as strong as mine would be. Neve- give up.

Is it my jaw? Is it my tongue? We haven't talked about lips much, but lips are also a component too. We talked about length, we also talked about, vibrating the vocal folds. So let's listen to another line. She's talking about, who she's thanking.

Michelle Yeoh: I wouldn't be standing here tonight without the Daniels, without A 24,

Bianca: Ooh. A 24. A 24. She really does pop that R there. A 24 /r/ /r/ /r/ /r/ /r/ . Look at the word here.

Michelle Yeoh: standing here tonight, standing here tonight, standing here tonight

Bianca: Here, here, here tonight. Here tonight. Here tonight. Not there so much, but number

Michelle Yeoh: 24 24 24

Bianca: 24 /r/ /r/ /r/. That R was very much like my R and 24, and that's an R after a vowel, what we call a Vocalic R.

Michelle Yeoh: here here here

Bianca: Here. Try not to touch. For here, here is how I would say it. But she says here, here, here to, here tonight. Here tonight, 24. For me. They're consistent. For me, they're the same, but for her they're different because she's had so many different influences.

She keeps thanking the rest of the cast and crew and anyone else who is involved

Michelle Yeoh: without my amazing cast and crew, without everyone who was involved with Everything Everywhere, All at Once.

/ɫ/ /ɫ/ /ɫ/. /l/ /l/ /l/ little, little. But for her, the the dark L is more similar to her regular L.

Michelle Yeoh: Little, little, little

/v/ /v/. Where's your tongue? Nowhere in sight there. So coordinating the tongue and the lips and the teeth at the same time. /ɫv/ /ɫv/ Directly after another V -volved-. and then a D right after that because that E is silent involved. There's a whole lot of consonants in that word. So if it makes it easier for you to drop some of that or, or do it a little bit differently, that makes sense, right?

So listen to how Michelle Yeoh says Involved.

Michelle Yeoh: Involved, Involved , Involved

Bianca: Involved, it's a little bit unvoiced in, involved. Involved. No one's gonna pick up on that, right? Except people like us . Notice how the first V is voiced and the second V not so much.

Michelle Yeoh: involved with, involved with, involved with

Bianca: InvolvTwith Twi involved with. Involved with. You really don't hear that voicing at all. Twith. Involved with, I would say, involved Dw Dw Dw dwith, right?

So for me, that voicing is coming back up here. Oh, now she starts talking about her mom. Of course, in this movie, moms play a central role.

Michelle Yeoh: I have to dedicate this to my mom.

Bianca: I have to. I have to. You think, well, everybody says that. Yes. We were just saying how the sound of /v/ /v/ /v/ should be voiced.

I have to, I have to get gas. I, I have to talk to you right now. /ft/ /ft/. You're really joining an F. That's devoiced /ft/. And then if you wanted to, you could say, I have, I have a million dollars /v/ /v/ /v/. I have a million dollars. So when we have that, have that, listen, I have that. When we have that phrase, have to, have to, have to, have to, have to. After so many years, we've, we've smashed it together.

We've de voiced it. That's what I do too.

Notice in the next sentence how she says all the, how I would say, all, all, listen to her L and all. Listen to her S in moms. See if that's S or Z.

Michelle Yeoh: All the moms in the world because they are really the superheroes and without them, none of us will be here tonight.

Now she's gonna take this trophy home. She's 84 and I'm taking this home to her.

Bianca: Hmm, she's, she's versus she's /zzz/ the S and Z, that final S, and she does have that R in 84.

Previously, the number she gave was at the end of a phrase or a clause, right? So there was a comma there. It's more likely that she would drop her R but she didn't. And in this case, she's got a vowel next. That also makes it less likely for her to drop that R.

Michelle Yeoh: She's 84 and I'm taking this home to her.

Bianca: Home, home, home. Home. Home. Home. Home, home, home, home. Home to her, almost, not quite, almost as the, uh, as an umbrella. Hum, hum hum. Umbrella hum, hum hum. Duration. I would say home, home,

Michelle Yeoh: She's watching right now in Malaysia, KL with my family and friends (blows kiss).

Bianca: Again, with the /æ/ sound, I would say fam, family or family, you can do it in two syllables or three. Family. Family, but for me, the vowel is gonna be the same, but she says,

Michelle Yeoh: family, family, family

Bianca: fam, fam. Her tongue is just a little bit back from me.

/fam/ /fam/ /fæm/ /fam/ /fæm/.

What's the trouble though? When we have a nasal sound next.

We have three nasals, N, M, and NG. And when we have /æ/ then a nasal and the air is trying to go up in my nose after that with my jaw super open, of course my jaw is gonna close up a little bit. So it might sound sometimes like /fɛm/ /fɛməli/, like feminine as in head or bed. Why? I'm trying to be open /æ/ /æ/ hat.

But when I stick an M on there, hat versus ham. Hat versus ham. You can see how that's gonna change it a little bit. So, totally makes sense.

Bianca: friends. I would say friends/z/ /z/ friends friends.

Also more difficult to do at the end of a phrase. Like we said, there's a comma. There's a period. I'm, I'm more likely to do things like devoicing, dropping an R, something like that.

Michelle Yeoh: I love you guys, guys, guys

Bianca: guys. Geis guys. Geis guys.

We say those differently. Geis versus Geis

she's gonna bring this home to Hong Kong. Let's see how she does those.

Michelle Yeoh: I'm bringing this home to you and also to my extended family in Hong Kong where I started my career.

Bianca: I would say started /d/ /d/ /d/, started. We've got an R, we've got a T in there. Started, started, started.

Michelle Yeoh: where I started my career, started my, started my

Bianca: started, started,

started, started, started, started. See how that R isn't as present. Now she thanks us again.

Bianca: That's interesting because we just said fam, fem fam, family fam, fem. And then stand though was very similar to what I would say.

Michelle Yeoh: me stand on your, stand on , stand on

Bianca: /stænd/ /stan/ /stænd/ /stan/. Same thing. The tongue is a little bit farther back.

Michelle Yeoh: giving me a leg up so, leg up, leg up

Bianca: And often given these patterns, right? You might think that she would say Le /k/ /k/ le cup. Le cup, right? With the devoicing, but leg up /g/ /g/ /g/ gup leg up. Like when you say giddy up to a

horse. Leg up. Leg up. That's very clearly voiced to me.

Michelle Yeoh: Leg up so that I can be here today

Bianca: And that R is here, here today. Whereas previously in the same speech, she said Here, here, here, here today. Here today.

Michelle Yeoh: and to my godchildren, godchildren, godchildren

Bianca: But she takes that letter D and devoices it. So it sounds like got children. Have you got children? For example? I'm doing a glottal stop here, but it it's, it's just unnvoiced.

Michelle Yeoh: Godchildren, godchildren, godchildren

Bianca: Da da da da. Dadda godchildren. Notice how she says the syllable stress. She says...

Michelle Yeoh: Godchildren, godchildren, godchildren

Bianca: Da da da da godchildren, Doda. It's almost like she's stressing each of the three syllables, da, da, da.

Michelle Yeoh: Godchildren, godchildren, godchildren

Bianca: Godchildren, god children, da da da, da da da, like I'm walking down the steps of a stairway, da, da, da, da da da.

I have primary stress. I have secondary stress, and then I have no stress. 1, 2, 3. But she says 1, 1, 1 more or less. Godchildren, almost, right? Not quite the same.

And she's thanking her family here

Michelle Yeoh: to my sisters, um, all of them, to my brothers.

Bianca: Notice also the Ss on sisters and brothers. I would say sisters and brothers. And now back to God, but not God children. Just to God.

Michelle Yeoh: To, oh God. To my family. Thank you (kisses Oscar). Thank you. Thank you to the academy.

Michelle Yeoh: This is history in the making. Thank you.

Bianca: And this is history for sure in the making.

And thank you, Michelle, for putting in all that hard work for 40 years in the industry.

And now finally, finally, getting what you deserve, an Oscar. Thank you so much for all your hard work. Thank you for breaking the glass ceiling. Thank you for being, thank you for being true to who you are. Thank you. Thank you so much.

I hope you enjoyed this very special episode where I'm analyzing Michelle Yeoh's idiolect, and we'll do more like this in the future.