DESCRIBING SOUNDS

DESCRIBING SOUNDS

Linguistics is concerned primarily with the spoken word. So a priority task for anyone describing sounds is to decide how to represent the flow of speech. Clearly, the conventional written forms are most unsatisfactory, since they often provide little guide to pronunciation. There are two subjects (science) of the branch of linguistics which describes language sounds (speech sounds or phones) namely Phonetics and Phonology.

Phonetics (from the Greek: φωνή, phōnē, "sound, voice") is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech.

The speech sounds can be studied in three different ways:

1. Acoustic phonetics – the study of how speech sounds are transmitted.
2. Auditory phonetics – the study of how speech sounds are heard.
3. Articulatory phonetics – the study of how speech sounds are produced by human speech apparatus (human speech organs)

ORGAN OF SPEECH

The organs we use in speaking are primarily used in breathing and eating. They are contained in three areas of the body:

-          The chest

-          The throat

-          The head

In the chest are lungs, which are very important in speaking, because all of the sounds of English are produced with air flowing from the lungs. When we breathe, air passes smoothly through the vocal tract (the throat and the mouth), without making a noise. When we speak, various things can happen to this flow of air and these interferences produce the sounds of speech.

In the throat is the larynx or voice box, which is located just inside the Adam’s apple (the part of the throat that protrudes) in a man and the corresponding area in a woman. It has an opening called the glottis, which may be modified by two bits of elastic tissues called vocal cords or bands that stretch across it. These vocal cords can interfere with the flow of air in various ways. The airflow can be completely stopped by the vocal cords when they are drawn firmly together to close the glottis, as in the production of a glottal stop, represented by [?]. You can produce a glottal stop in pronouncing the beginning vowel in words like orange, always, enter. When the vocal cords are drawn lightly together, the air passing through between them causes them to vibrate. This happens when we make a buzzing sound like zzz. If the vocal cords are relaxed and apart, the air passes between them without causing vibration, as when we make a hissing sound like sss. In speaking, when the vocal cords vibrate, the sound produced is a voiced sound. When the vocal cords do not vibrate, the sound produced is a voiceless sound. You can feel the vibration of a sound by placing your hand over the voice box.

Above the voice box is the pharynx or pharyngeal cavity, which acts as a resonating chamber for the sounds produced by vibration of the vocal cords. The shape of this cavity can be modified so that the airstream can be completely or partially stopped by the action of the soft palate or the tongue.

In the head are the organs of articulation and two cavities: the oral cavity (or mouth) and the nasal cavity (or nose). The organs of articulation in the upper part of the mouth are the uvula (you can see this hanging bit of tissue in the mouth if you open your mouth and look in a mirror.), the soft palate, the hard palate, the alveolar ridge (the gums behind the upper front teeth), the upper teeth and the upper lip. The organs of articulation in the lower part of the mouth are tongue, the lower teeth, and the lower lip. The tongue has been divided into these parts : the back, the front and the apex (or tip). The tongue is the most flexible organ of speech because every part of it can be moved.

In the production of speech sounds, the organs in the upper part of the mouth may be described as places or points of articulation and those in the lower part of the mouth as articulators. When we produce speech sounds, the air flow is interfered with by the articulators in the lower part of the mouth moving toward the points of articulation in the upper part of the mouth.  The resulting opening is called the manner of articulation of the speech sound. There are several manners of articulation. If the articulator touches the point of articulation firmly, the air flow is stopped and the sound produced is called stop. If it comes close and leaves a narrow opening, the air flows through  with friction and the sound is called a fricative. If it touches the point of articulation as in stop, then comes away slowly and air passes through with friction, the sound is affricate (a combination of stop and fricative). If it touches the point of articulation but allows air to flow along the side of the tongue, the sound is a lateral.

According to the description of the speech apparatus, we can ask two questions about how any speech sound is produced:

1.      What is the point of articulation?

2.      What is the manner of articulation?

The airstream may pass to the outer atmosphere through either the oral or nasal cavity. The nasal cavity is connected to the oral cavity through the velic. The soft palate or velum can be drawn back to close the velic, so that the airstream from the lungs must pass through the oral cavity. On the other hand, the velum may be relaxed and leave the velic open to allow the airstream to pass through the nasal cavity. The latter is the case when sounds like [m], [n], and [ŋ] are produced. When air goes through the oral cavity the sounds produced are oral sounds. When air passes through the nasal cavity the sounds produced are nasal sounds. We can therefore ask another question about the production of any speech sound: Is the air passing through the oral or nasal cavity?