SPEECH
Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language
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1998
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© Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language 1998, originally published by Oxford University Press 1998. (Hide copyright information)
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SPEECH 1. The primary form of
LANGUAGE; oral
COMMUNICATION in general and on any particular occasion:
Most people are more fluent in speech than in writing.
2. A usually formal occasion when a person addresses an audience, often with the help of notes or a prepared text.
3. A way of speaking, often involving a judgement of some kind:
local speech,
slovenly speech,
standard speech.
4. The field of study associated with speaking and listening:
the science of speech.
Anatomy and physiology
Speech is possible because of the development over millennia of an appropriate physical system: the diaphragm, lungs, throat, mouth, and nose, working together. All such organs preexisted the evolution of language and have such prior purposes as breathing, eating, and drinking. With the advent of speech, they continued to perform these functions while becoming available for additional uses, so that two systems (maintenance of the body and systematic communication) exist side by side. Vocal sound becomes possible when a stream of air is breathed out from the lungs and passes through the larynx, then into and through the pharynx, mouth, and nose. This sound may be
voiced or
voiceless: that is, the larynx may vibrate or not. Different sounds are made in the mouth by moving the lips, tongue, and lower jaw to change the size and shape of the channel through which the air passes. A
CONSONANT is made with a narrowing of the channel, and the point of maximum narrowing is the
place (or
point)
of articulation for that consonant. The way in which this is done is the
manner of articulation. A
VOWEL typically has a wider channel than a consonant. Since it is difficult to be precise about the articulation of vowels, they are normally described by their auditory quality. In discussing articulation, phoneticians refer to an
articulator, which may be
active (as with the lips and tongue) or
passive (as with the front teeth).
Place of articulation
For
bilabial consonants, the narrowing is achieved by bringing the lips together. For
labio-dental consonants, the active articulator is the lower lip. In other cases, the active articulator is part of the tongue, which is raised towards the passive articulator on the roof of the mouth: see table.
Sounds can be classified according to the active articulator, for example the tongue:
apical sounds made with the tip (Latin
apex);
laminal sounds with the blade (Latin
lamina);
dorsal sounds with the back (Latin
dorsum).
Retroflex sounds are made with the tip of the tongue curled back behind the alveolar ridge towards the
PALATE. However, the commonest classification is according to the passive articulator. This terminology assumes that the active articulator is the organ that lies opposite the passive articulator in the state of rest: for example, the passive articulator of a
dental sound is the upper front teeth, and the active articulator is the tip of the tongue. If some other active articulator is used, it is specified explicitly: for example for /f, v/, the lower lip moves up to the upper teeth, and these sounds are
labio-dental: see table. The
ASPIRATE /h/ is usually described as glottal. In English, /h/ is like a
voiceless vowel in that there is no fricative-like narrowing in the mouth, so that the greatest point of narrowing is in the glottis. Most sounds have one place of articulation, but /w/ has a
double articulation, being made by simultaneously rounding the lips and raising the back of the tongue towards the
VELUM. It is thus both bilabial and velar.
Manner of articulation
This refers mainly to the degree of narrowing at the place of articulation of a sound. If the airstream is blocked completely, the result is a
STOP, such as /b/, but if it is narrowed to the point where noise or
turbulence is generated as air passes through the gap, the resulting sound is a
FRICATIVE /v/. In the case of an
APPROXIMANT or
continuant, the manner of articulation is more open, as with the /r/ of
rink as compared to the /z/ of
zinc (a voiced fricative). When a stop is released, the articulators move apart and necessarily pass through the degree of narrowing which produces fricative noise. A
PLOSIVE is released quickly, whereas an
AFFRICATE is released slowly:
plosives | /p, b; t, d; k, g/ |
affricates | /tʃ, dʒ/ |
fricatives | /f, v; θ, ð; s, z; ʃ, ʒ; h/ |
There are several types of approximant. The velum is normally raised to prevent air from entering the nose: a
NASAL is produced with the velum lowered. The airstream normally passes centrally through the mouth: in the case of a
lateral, the air escapes at the sides. The tongue normally offers a convex surface to the roof of the mouth: for an
r-sound, the tongue surface is often hollowed out and the tip raised. A
GLIDE or
semi-vowel is vowel-like and moves rapidly into the following vowel, and cannot be prolonged:
nasals | /m, n, ŋ/ |
lateral | /l/ |
r-sound | /r/ |
glides | /j, w/ |
Phoneticians conventionally describe consonants according to their articulation.
Articulator | | Description | Examples |
|---|
Active | Passive | | |
|---|
lower and upper lips | – | labial | /p, b, m/ |
lower lip | front teeth | labio-dental | /f, v/ |
tongue: | | | |
tip
| front teeth | dental | /θ, ð/ |
tip | alveolar ridge | alveolar | /t, d, s, z, n, l, r/ |
tip/blade | ridge/palate | palato-alveolar | /ʃ, ʒ, tʃ, dʒ/ |
front | palate | palatal | /j/ |
back | velum | velar | /k, g, ŋ/ |
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