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Ventriloquized 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

A poetic voice that speaks through or for another persona or perspective

Detailed Definition
Ventriloquized voice occurs when a poet adopts a persona or external speaker to articulate thoughts indirectly, creating distance, irony, or multiplicity; the “dummy” voice allows exploration of taboo, alien, or contradictory perspectives through displaced utterance.
Example
Example in poetry:
Ventriloquized voice: In "My Last Duchess," Browning ventriloquizes the Duke; Sylvia Plath’s "Daddy" speaks through Nazi/child personas; Contemporary: Claudia Rankine ventriloquizes microaggressors in "Citizen"; Ocean Vuong gives voice to mother’s Vietnamese in English poems
Additional Notes
Ventriloquized voice: A poetic speaker who channels or speaks through another entity (ghost, object, historical figure); creates uncanny or polyphonic effects; common in dramatic monologues.
Also Known As
Borrowed voice Assumed speaker Proxy utterance Spoken-through voice
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