Unit 2 Organs of speech. The production of speech sounds

All the sounds we make when we speak are the result of muscles contracting. The muscles in the chest that we use for breathing produce the flow of air that is needed for almost all speech sounds; muscles in the larynx produce many different modifications in the flow of air from the chest to the mouth. After passing through the larynx, the air goes through what we call the vocal tract, which ends at the mouth and nostrils. Here the air from the lungs escapes into the atmosphere.

In order to learn how the sounds of speech are produced it is necessary to become familiar with the different parts of the vocal tract. These different parts are called articulators, and articulationsare all positions and movements of thespeech organs necessary to produce a speech sound.

The following diagram represents the human head, seen from the side, displayed as though it had been cut in half.

I mouth cavity;

II nasal cavity;

III pharynx;

IV larynx.

Active (mobile) articulators:

1 lips;

2 tongue;

а tip of the tongue;

b blade of the tongue;

c middle part;

d back part;

3 soft palate;

4 uvula;

5 vocal cords.

Passive (immobile) articulators:

6 upper and lower teeth;

7 alveolar, teeth ridge;

8 hard palate.

The air released by the lungs comes through the wind-pipe and arrives first at the larynx. The larynx is a boxlike part in the throat which contains two small bands of elastic tissue, that lie opposite each other across the air passage. These are the vocal cords. They can be pulled together or drawn apart. The opening between the cords is called glottis. As air passes through the glottis, different glottis states are produced, depending on the positioning of the vocal cords.

In the larynx the vocal cords set up vibrations of the airflow. The vibrating air passes through the filters (cavities with passive and active articulators) which modify it into sounds.

Articulation is all the positions and movements of the speech organs necessary to produce a speech sound. Different vowels are produced by varying the shape of the mouth, using the tongue and lips. When in the pharynx, the mouth, and the nasal cavity there is an obstruction to the air-flow, a consonant is produced.

The pharynx is a tube which begins just above the larynx. At its top end it is divided into two, one part being the back of the mouth (you can see it if you look in your mirror with your mouth open), and the other being the beginning of the way through the nasal cavity.

The soft palate or velum is one of the articulators that can be touched by the tongue. For example, when we make the sounds k and g the tongue is in contact with the lower side of the velum, and we call these velar consonants.

The hard palate is often called the "roof of the mouth". You can feel its smooth curved surface with your tongue.

The alveolar ridge is between the top front teeth and the palate. You can feel its shape with your tongue. Its surface is really much rougher than it feels, and is covered with little ridges. They can only be seen with the help of a mirror small enough to go inside the mouth (such as those used by dentists). Sounds made with the tongue touching here (such as t and d) are called alveolar.

The tongue is, of course, a very important articulator and it can be moved into many different places and different shapes. It is usual to divide the tongue into different parts, though there are no clear dividing lines within the tongue.

The tongue is in contact with the teeth for many speech sounds. Sounds made with the tongue touching the front teeth are called dental.

The lipsare important in speech. They can be pressed together (when we produce the sounds p, b), brought into contact with the teeth (as in f, v), or rounded to produce the lip-shape for vowels like u:. Sounds in which the lips are in contact with each other are called bilabial, while those with lip-to-teeth contact are called labiodental.

The articulators described above are the main ones used in speech, but there are three other things to remember. For example, the jawsare sometimes called articulators; certainly we move the lower jaw a lot in speaking. But the jaws are not articulators in the same way as the others, because they cannot themselves make contact with other articulators. Finally, although there is practically nothing that we can do with the nose and the nasal cavity, they are a very important part of our equipment for making sounds (what is sometimes called our vocal apparatus), particularly nasal consonants such as m, n.

<== попередня сторінка	\|	наступна сторінка ==>
Unit 1 General notions and definitions	\|	Unit 3 Sound classes

Не знайшли потрібну інформацію? Скористайтесь пошуком google:

Генерація сторінки за: 0.017 сек.