Page 52 - DENG504_LINGUISTICS

Linguistics

Notes

Acoustic phonetics is the study of the physical properties of speech sounds such as
frequency and amplitude in their transmission.

4.3.2 Auditory Phonetics
Auditory phonetics is the study of hearing and the perception of speech sounds. It studies different
auditory impressions of quality, pitch and loudness of sounds. The auditory classification of
speech-sounds has not yet been carried to a decisive phase. At the present time, phonetics can be
regarded as being made up of two main branches: articulatory and acoustic phonetics.
In a book like this, it would not be of any significant use to go into the details of acoustic and
auditory phonetics. The results of acoustic and auditory phonetics need very minute observations
and great scientific and technical expertise, and are often puzzling. These branches use instruments
which cannot be used easily outside a laboratory, and cannot be transported successfully from one
place to another. Hence the easiest approach to observations about speech is the traditional and
most common approach of articulatory phonetics, and we shall be dealing with it in great detail.

4.3.3 Articulatory Phonetics
Articulatory phonetics recognizes that speech is produced by some kind of sound-making apparatus
inside the human body, and that specific sounds may be related to specific movement of the
apparatus. Hence it is the study of movement of the speech organs in the articulation of speech.
Speech is produced by the movements of the organs of speech— lungs, larynx, soft palate, tongue,
teeth and lips. The knowledge of the organs of speech, their relation to each other, and the way in
which they are used while speaking, provides a sound basis for the classification of sounds of
human languages.
4.4 Speech Mechanisms

4.4.1 A Speech Operation
The transmission in sound of the simplest concept in the mind is the result of a complicated chain
of events. Any speech operation depends on a chain of speech acts. An effective act of speech is an
exceedingly complex operation involving a number of operations. The first stage is psychological,
the second is physiological and the third is physical. First of all a concept is formulated in the
speaker’s brain, and human nervous system transmits this linguistic message to the so-called
organs of speech, articulatory or physiological. The organs of speech are thus activated and their
movements create disturbances in the air; and these sound waves are received by the listener’s
ears. And at the listener’s end, first of all the ears receive the linguistic codification; his nervous
system passes this linguistic message to the brain, where the linguistic interpretation of the message
takes place.
The linguistic message conveyed to the organs of speech by the nervous system activates the
lungs, larynx and the cavities above in such a way that they perform a series of movements to
produce a particular pattern of sound. For the production of speech we need an air-stream mechanism.
(For the sounds of English we make use of an egressive pulmonic air-stream, that is, the
air pushed out of the lungs through the mouth or nose or both. Generally all speech-sounds are
made by an egressive pulmonic air stream of outgoing breath, although in a few languages (such
as Hottenetot), there are speech-sounds, often called “clicks” which are made on ingressive
(in going) air.
In this way the speech-sound is produced by the articulatory movements in the chest, throat,
mouth and nose. The articulatory apparatus as shown in Figure No. 4.1 (see next page), has four
areas: (1) the larynx containing the vocal cords, (2) the oral cavity (mouth), (3) the pharyngeal
cavity (throat): and, (4) the nasal cavity (nose). The airstream coming from the lungs may be

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