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Borrowed voice

Device
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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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

Adoption of another poet's or character's distinctive speech patterns

Detailed Definition
Borrowed voice describes a poetic technique wherein the speaker adopts or channels the diction, tone, perspective, or idiom of another persona—historical, fictional, or cultural—without fully embodying them, creating a layered textual presence that interrogates authenticity, authority, and identity through strategic ventriloquism rather than direct impersonation.
Example
Example in poetry:
Borrowed voice: In Carol Ann Duffy’s The World’s Wife, poems like “Mrs. Midas” use borrowed voice—giving voice to mythological or historical women silenced in original texts.
Additional Notes
Borrowed voice adopts another’s perspective, dialect, or persona (e.g., dramatic monologue); requires ethical sensitivity and authentic rendering.
Also Known As
Adopted voice secondhand persona borrowed speaker inherited narrator Ventriloquized voice Adopted speaker
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