Aspects of sound phenomena.

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 1811.

Sound phenomena have different aspects, which are closely interconnected: the articulatory aspect, the acoustic, the auditory and the linguistic. The articulatory (sound—production) aspect (speech sounds are products of human organs of speech: the diaphragm, the lungs, the bronchi, the trachea, the larynx with the vocal cords in it, the pharynx, the mouth cavity and the nasal cavity. Sound production is impossible without respiration, which consists of two phases — inspiration and expiration. Speech sounds are chiefly based on expiration, though in some African languages there are sounds produced by inspiration. Expiration, during which speech sounds are produced, is called phonic expiration. In speech, ex­piration lasts much longer than inspiration, whereas in quiet breathing inspi­ration and expiration take about the same period of time. One part of sound production is phonation – voice-production). The acoustic aspect (like any other sound of nature speech sounds exist in the form of sound waves and have the same physical properties — frequency, intensity, duration and spectrum. A sound wave is created by a vibration which may be periodic or non-periodic, simple or complex. The vocal cords vibrate in such a way that they produce various kinds of waves simultaneously. The basic vibrations of the vocal cords over their whole length produce the fundamental tone of voice. The simultaneous vibrations of each part of the vocal cords produce partial tones (overtones or harmonics). The number of vibrations per second is called frequency (hertz or cycles per second). Intensity of speech sounds depends on the amplitude of vibration. Changes in intensity are associated with stress in those languages which have dynamic stress. Intensity is measured in decibels. Like any other form of matter, sound exists and moves in time. Any sound has a certain duration. The duration of a sound is the quantity of time during which the same vibrations continue (is measured in mil­liseconds)). The auditory (sound—perception) aspect (speech sounds may also be ana­lysed from the point of view of perception. The perception of speech sounds involves the activity of our hearing mechanism. Our hearing mechanism acts as a monitor of what we ourselves are saying. The process of communication would be impossible if the speaker himself did not hear the sounds he pronounces. If the link between listening and pronouncing is disturbed, disturbances in the production of speech sounds are likely to appear. The better we hear the differences between the sounds, the better we pronounce them). The linguistic aspect ( segmental sounds and prosodic features are linguistic phenomena. They constitute meaningful units — mor­phemes, words, word—forms, utterances. All the words of a language consist of speech sounds. Most of the meaningful distinctions of the language are based on distinc­tions in sound. Sounds and prosodic features serve to differentiate the units they form. Simultaneously, the sound phenomena enable the listener to identify them as concrete words, word—forms or utterances. Thus, segmental sounds and prosodic features of speech perform constitutive, distinctive and identificatory functions.