An Orchestra of Gurns

"girn (also 'gurn') noun:

1. The act of snarling or showing the teeth in rage, pain, disappointment, etc.

2. The act of laughing or grinning."  - The Oxford English Dictionary

“A gurn or chuck is a distorted facial expression, and a verb to describe the action.” – Wikipedia

Those in the know also refer to "gurning" as "face-pulling."

I usually describe “gurning” as “the art of making funny faces.” And there is indeed art in it. There are gurning competitions all over the UK, the most famous of which has been happening at the Egremont Crab Fair in Cumberland since 1267. There are rules to this competition - no make-up, for instance, but removal of false teeth is fair game - and there is in fact an individual who holds the Guinness World Record for gurning after winning the World Gurning Championship fifteen times.

Dudley wrote in his book, Speaking with Skill, that "to 'gurn' is to make strange faces, and the more bizarre they are better." On its own, gurning is a wonderfully effective warm-up for the muscles of facial expression and of articulation. When a Gurner takes that action inside the vocal tract - to the tongue, the soft palate, the muscles of the neck and throat - and when a Gurner adds a flow of voice to it, that Gurner starts to make a new language full of exotic and familiar vowel and consonant sounds. We might call this language Gurnish, and the only thing that determines its consonant and vowel inventory is what's physically possible.

There may be some factors that influence our perceptions of what's physically possible. One may be a fear of pulling our faces too far towards injury. That's understandable! No competitive Gurner wants to go down that way. Another factor may be a lack of experience. Perhaps you've never tried to pull your lower lip over your nose, and that's also understandable. It doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't physically possible, though, and it just might lead to an award-winning expression. Yet another factor may be our own internal "cool" meter. "Is it cool to pull my upper lip over my nose?," it may be wondering inside your head. "Will that other actor waiting for the audition think I'm strange if I do that?" "Will that cute boy in my speech class not want to go out with me if I do that?" One way to bypass this internal "cool" meter and to expand your Gurnish is to give over control of the action to a partner.

In other words, to be conducted in your gurning.

A Gurnish conductor's job is to gesture (with hands, voice, or full body - why not?), and the Gurner's job is to translate those gestures into Gurnish. The resulting strange, funny, and pulled faces will most likely include some that the Gurner wouldn't have found on his or her own, and so the speech sounds that are shaped by them will most likely be ones that the Gurner wouldn't have found on his or her own. And you, as the Gurner, can't be blamed for the faces and sounds you're making; you're simply following your conductor.

An example (and certainly not the only one):
1) The Conductor and Gurner sit opposite each other.
2) The Conductor raises his or her hands, and, at the cue, begins to conduct using hands and arms.
3) The Gurner begins to gurn according to the information s/he receives from the Conductor.
4) The Gurner adds a flow of voice to the conducted gurning.
5) At the cue, the Conductor and Gurner switch roles.

Conducted Gurning can be done in pairs, or there can be one Conductor for a whole orchestra of Gurners - with separate wind, brass, percussion and string sections, if you like.  The only limitation to the exercise is what is physically possible.  And I, for one, think that's pretty cool.

Adding Insult to Investigation

One thing I think we'd like to do with this blog is share ideas for new and fun Omnish exercises. One of us will write a post soon sharing one or two that aren’t in the book. I have also found a need in my teaching, however, for some extra Outlandish exercises. I hesitate to introduce Omnish until my students are thoroughly grounded in the Empty Chart—in all the specific possibilities of obstruent action. But because the Bataan Death March through the Empty Chart can take up to five ninety-minute classes, I have a great need for fun things to do for warm-ups and for quick head and tongue-clearing breaks in the middle of these classes.

One thing I’ve found to be effective and a lot of fun is to have students insult each other in Outlandish. Outlandish, being outlandish, has even more potential for extreme and enthusiastic expression than Omnish does. So it lends itself wonderfully to insults. I generally divide the class into two groups, and send each group to opposite sides of the room. One member of one group walks forward towards the other group and insults them, in Outlandish. The insulted group, as a whole, then responds by repeating, incredulously, the insult or the end of the insult, ideally using a kind of ‘Did he really just say that?’ inflection as they look at each other, full of righteous umbrage. One of them then steps forward and insults the other group generally, hopefully topping the first insult. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Besides being a lot of fun and changing the energy in the room after some very focussed attention on individual specific articulations, this exercise encourages a lot of active muscularity. Whether or not it's pointed out to them after the fact, they get an early chance to start experiencing what it's like to really be physically engaged in the act of speaking. Which is the whole point, after all.

Do you have any fun or creative Outlandish exercises that you do with students?