Home › Glossary › Letter A

Adopted voice

Concept
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A poetic persona spoken in the voice of another person or character

Detailed Definition
A poetic technique where the poet assumes another person's speech patterns, perspective, or identity, creating a dramatic character or persona distinct from the poet's own voice. This differs from simple first-person narration by deliberately taking on characteristics specific to another individual—historical figures, fictional characters, or imagined persons. Adopted voice allows exploration of experiences beyond the poet's own, creating dramatic immediacy while raising questions about authenticity, appropriation, and the limits of imaginative empathy.
Example
Example in poetry:
Carol Ann Duffy’s “Mrs. Midas” adopts the voice of King Midas’ wife to critique greed and gender roles; Robert Browning’s dramatic monologues like “My Last Duchess” use adopted voice for psychological revelation; Claudia Rankine’s “Citizen” shifts between “you” and collective “we” to adopt multiple racialized perspectives; Ocean Vuong adopts his mother’s voice in “Telemachus” to explore immigrant memory; adopted voice allows poets to inhabit other subjectivities ethically or critically; contemporary poet Solmaz Sharif uses adopted bureaucratic and military diction in “Look” to expose systemic violence.
Additional Notes
Adopted voice involves writing from a persona or perspective not one’s own—historical, fictional, or cultural; requires empathy and research to avoid appropriation or stereotype.
Also Known As
Borrowed voice Assumed persona Adopted speaker secondhand persona
Skip to main content