Summary Language and Communication – Chapter 1, 2, 3 & 4
Chapter 1 Phonetics and Phonology
The study of the sounds of speech can be divided into the disciplines of
phonetics and phonology. Phonetics studies speech sounds as physical
objects. Phonology studies how languages organize sounds into diferent
patterns.
Basically, sound is vibrating air. Speaking means using your vocal tract
(lungs, trachea(luchtpijp), larynx (strottenhoofd), mouth and nose) to
get air moving and vibrating and then shaping that movement in diferent
ways. Most speech sounds are made with air exiting the lungs, therefore,
speech begins with breath. Then you pull down your diaphragm
(middenrif), this enlarges the lungs. Then the muscles around the ribs
contract, slowly squeezing the lungs and forcing the air out and up the
trachea. Then the larynx has two folds of soft tissue, called the vocal
folds. If the vocal folds are held in the correct position with the correct
tension, the air fowing out the trachea causes them to fap open and
closed very quickly, around 200 times per second. The faster the vibration,
the higher the pitch of the voice.
The epiglottis (strotklepje), laid above the larynx, folds down over the
larynx when you swallow to prevent food. The pharynx(keelholte) allows
the tongue freedom for front and back movement, it’s the open area at
the back of the mouth.
The active articulators move toward the passive articulators in order to
constrict and shape air that is moving from the lungs. It includes the lips,
and the tongue. Although the tongue has no bones, diferent parts of the
tongue can move independently.
Tongue front including tongue tip and tongue blade
Tongue body the main mass of the tongue, also known as the
dorsum
Tongue root the lowest part of the tongue, back in the pharynx
The passive articulators lie along the top of the vocal tract. You will frst
encounter the alveolar ridge, the bony rise just behind your teeth. The
postalveolar region arches from the ridge toward the hard palate, the
roof of the mouth. The velum is the softer tissue. At the very end of the
velum is the uvula, the little pendulum you can see hanging down the
back of your mouth when you open wide and say ah.
Articulation
The movements of speech are goal-directed gestures. The usual choice of
airstream mechanism is pulmonic regressive that is air moving out
from the lungs. You can also get air moving by moving the larynx up or
down, or by popping little pockets of air made with the tongue against the
,roof of the mouth, as in clicks. The second choice is what to do with the
vocal folds. Sounds produced with vocal fold vibration are voiced, sounds
produced without vocal fold vibration are voiceless. The aspiration is
where you can feel an extra release of air. The velum can be open, then
air fows into the nose, the sound is nasal like m. If the velum is closed,
the sound is oral. Finally, the speaker must decide which active articulator
will be used to make a constriction, where this will be made, and what sort
of it will be made
The manners of articulation include: stop, fricative, africate, approximant
and vowel.
Stop if the active and passive articulators are brought together to
make a complete closure, so that the airfow out of the mouth is
completely cut of. (p,t,k)
Fricative if the articulators are brought close together but not
closed completely, so that the stream of air that is forced between
them becomes turbulent and noisy. (s,z,f,v)
Affricates combines a sequence of stop plus fricative in a single
sound (ch)
Approximant if the active articulator moves to narrow the vocal
tract, but no so much that fricative noise is created. (l,r)
Vowels the vocal tract is relatively wide open, and air fows out
freely.
The l-sounds of the languages of the world are called laterals, because
air fows out over the sided of the tongue. The r-sounds are called
rhotics. Oral stops, fricatives and africates together form a class of
sounds called obstruents, because they make noise by obstructing the
airfow in the vocal tract, causing a burst of sounds as a closure is
released or a hissing sound. Nasal stops, approximants and vowels
form a class of sounds called sonorants. They make audible sounds,
not by obstructing the airfow, but by letting the air resonate.
Consonants
If the lower and upper lip come together, the sound is bilabial. The
sounds p, b, m are bilabials. Note that p is voiceless and b and m are
voiced. Alternatively, the lower lip can contact the upper teeth to
produce a labiodental sound such as f and v. The lower lip is rather
limited in the places at which it can make a constriction. The tongue
front is the most versatile of the active articulators, moving to at least
four diferent places of articulation.
Usually the blade of the tongue is used to make a postalveolar
constriction. If the tip of the tongue curls back, the sound is called
retroflex. The sound at the beginning of the English words you and
yacht is palatal. English doesn’t have any other palatal sounds, but
they’re not hard to make. The tongue body can also make constrictions
further back, at the uvular place of the articulation. To make a uvular
stop move the tongue a few centimetres back. Finally, consonants can
, be made with the larynxes as the only articulator. The sounds h
consists of the noise of air rushing through the open vocal folds, and
may be considered a laryngeal fricative. It is also possible to close the
vocal folds up tight, stopping the airfow at the larynx, a glottal stop.
The glide w combines a narrowing of the vocal tract at the velar place
of articulation with roundings of the lips. It is a double articulation, a
labiovelar glide.
There are eleven common places of articulation, but no single language
makes consonants using all of the places.
Vowels
By defnition, vowels have an open vocal tract, so the tongue doesn’t
touch the upper surface of the tract at the particular place. Diferent
vowels are described in terms of the ways in which the tongue body and
lips move.
o High, mid and low vowels mean how the tongue moves.
o Round and unround refects to the lip rounding. (back vowels are
round, the other are all unround)
o tense vowels i, e, o, u are longer and slightly higher. They’re
produced with greater stifening of the tongue root
