PURPOSE: To investigate how individuals with and without voice training use emphatic accent in two previously selected words during a reading. METHODS:Seventy seven individuals with ages between 19 and 57 years were distributed into two groups: 51 students from a radio training course - TG (trained group); and 26 subjects with no voice and speech training - UnTG (untrained group). Individuals read a radio report twice, emphasizing two different words in each reading: "negotiates" and "reforms". The readings were recorded with an interval of two months between them, which corresponded to the beginning and end of the radio training course attended by the TG. Voice samples were submitted to: auditory-perceptual analysis of the occurrence, evaluation and use of emphasis; visual analysis of the spectrographic trace for delimitation of the pauses; acoustic analysis of the duration and fundamental frequency of the emphases. Results were submitted to statistical analysis. RESULTS: The TG had higher grades than the UnTG regarding the quality of emphasis use, and there was no difference in its occurrence and use. The word "reforms" had higher occurrence of emphasis and was better evaluated than the word "negotiates". The TG used less pauses than the UnTG. Acoustic analysis showed that the word "reforms" was longer than "negotiates" in the UnTG. The mean fundamental frequency was higher for "negotiates". CONCLUSION: Both groups demonstrated that the use of emphasis accompanies the individuality of speakers. The TG had better ability in the distribution of pauses. The words were distinctly emphasized due to syntactic and semantic aspects.