Articulatory, acoustic, auditory and functional aspects of speech sounds.

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 2086.

There are 4 aspects of speech sounds: 1) Articulatory; 2) Acoustic; 3) Auditory (perceptive); 4) Functional (linguistic, social). Articulatory, acoustic and auditory phonetics study material side of speech sound. Functional – phonology which studies the linguistic functions of consonants and vowels, syllabic structure, word stress, prosodic features – voice speech, stress (phrasal, sentence), tempo, pausation, voice timber. Articulatory aspect. Articulatory phonetics is the brunch of phonetics that studies, describes and classifies speech sounds as produced by human's organs. From articulatory point of view every speech sound is a complex of definite coordinated and differentiated movements and positions of the various speech organs necessary to pronounce speech sound. Movements and positions of organs = articulation. Speech sounds are pronounced on either regressive (out go) air stream or an ingressive (in go) air stream. Organs of speech are subdivided into 4 mechanisms: 1) Power mechanism. It supplies energy in the form of air pressure and regulates the force of air stream (diaphragm, lungs, bronchi, wind pipe (trachea), glottis, pharynges, mouth cavity, nasal cavity.); 2) Vibrator mechanism (vocal chords with the glottis). Positions of vocal chords: When the glottis is freely opened the linguistic function of vocal chords is to provide the source of energy. When the glottis is narrowed it may function as a part of the abstractor mechanism to produce consonantal noises [h]. The position of the vocal chords for voice production is when the glottis is narrowed so that the tensed vocal chords approach each other and vibrate under the influence of the air pressure.; 3) “Resonator” mechanism. (pharynges, mouth and nasal cavity). We can change the form of tense. The shape and the volume of these cavities are modified by different movable organs like: soft palate, cheeks, tongue, lips etc.; 4) the abstractor mechanism which consists of those speech organs whose function is to form an abstraction of some kind to the air stream. It is responsible for pronouncing consonants. Speech sounds when using in combinations influence each other (elision, assimilation.) The simplest method of articulatory phonetics – direct observation (visual + auditory). Observe native speaker talking – observe yourself (analyze the movements during the articulation). Method which includes palatography, ex-rayed photography, electromyography (marks the movement of muscles) + different methods of recording and reproducing speech. Acoustic aspect. A speech sound is a physical phenomenon like any sound in nature, it is a kind of moving matter and energy. Acoustic phonetics is sometimes called “phonoacoustics”, experimental phonetics or laboratory phonetics. It deals with the properties of speech sounds as presented in vibrations of air between the speaker's mouth and the listener's ear. Acoustic phonetics studies acoustic components of the sound matter of language. Acoustic components: 1) When the vocal chords vibrates through their whole length they produce the so called fundamental frequency. These vibrations are regular and they are perceived as change of muscular tone/ pitch. Fundamental frequency participates in producing intonations but not in producing individual sounds. 2) When parts of vocal chords vibrate they produce over tones or harmonics. These are also regular, they determine the quality of vowels and sonorants. Other sources of high frequencies are the following: friction of the air particles, passing through the constriction [f, th, s]; a sudden burst of air behind a complete abstraction/closure in producing of plosives [p, t, k]. This complex range of frequencies constitutes the quality of the sound which is called the acoustic spectrum. Each sound has got individual characteristic band of energy, and these constitute the second component which is called spectral/formant component. 3) Voice timber, which is characterized as a special colouring of voice, which is individual. 4) The intensity (force component). In oral speech this phenomenon is associated with stress. Stress sounds are pronounced stronger. 5) The time/temporal component. This component manifests itself in the length of speech sounds and pauses. This acoustic phonetics has/uses instrumental method of investigation. There such instruments are used: sound spectrograph, intonograph. Auditory aspect is investigated with auditory phonetics, which is called perceptive phonetics. It's the brunch of phonetics which is concerned with perception of speech sounds. It studies the relationships between speech stimuli and a listener's response to such stimuli. It is also concerned with peripheral and central auditory systems, including some certain areas of brain. One of the most general aims of auditory phonetics is to determine which sound characteristics are essential for a person perceiving speech. It is also concerned with the possibilities and abilities of native speakers to notice, identify and use acoustic characteristics of speech sounds while perceiving speech messages. Acoustic and articulatory qualities are variable and they depend not only upon the phonetic position of this or that of speaker's speech operators, on his state of mood or even health. Native speakers don't notice this ability, but for a language learner understanding of perceptive activity of native language speakers is important. Methods of auditory phonetics are methods used in experimental phonetics. Examinees during experiments carry out 3 main types of perceptive activity: 1) Identification. On hearing a speech stimulus, the examinee had to mark with the help of a letter or a transcription sign; and the examiner will define perceptive abilities concerning the phonetic classification of sounds and also whether the examinee is able to notice acoustic characteristics. 2) Differentiation. The examinee defines whether the 2 sounds he has heard are identical or not. This helps to find out whether he/she is capable of differentiating sounds with definite characteristics. 3) Comparison. The examinee has to decide which of the 2 sounds known to him the 3^rd sound resembles. The examiner is concerned with the quality perceptive of the sound. On the whole auditory phonetics gives important material on the way the sounds and functions. Functional aspect is purely linguistic. It deals with the role the speech sounds play in the functioning of the language. Baudouin de Courtenay was the first to found the brunch of phonetics which is concerned with this aspect is called phonology. Sometimes phonology is called phonemics. It is a comparatively new brunch of phonetics (1861-1881). This brunch deals with functions of speech sounds. 1) Constitutive function. (morphemes, words, sentences etc.) 2) Distinctive function. Language may function when the majority of its morphemes, words and sentences differ from one another. There are different means of linguistic differentiation. One morpheme is differentiated from another morpheme by a difference in the number of their constituency speech sounds when these sounds are identical position. As a result one or more speech sound in one morpheme or word is opposed to the absence of one or more speech sounds in the same position in another morpheme or word. This is the so called “zero opposition”. Eg: Port/ports. One morpheme is differentiated from another morpheme or word because speech sounds that are considered to be different occur in identical position (at the beginning, in the middle, at the end of the word). Eg: tack/cat/act. Minimal pare – when 2 words/2 grammatical forms of a word are differentiated by only 2 different speech sounds occurring in identical position. Eg: cat/pat. These mutually distinctive sounds form the substratum of a linguistic unit called phonemes. Different mutually distinctive sounds belong to different phonemes. They are instances, variants, allophones of different phonemes. 3) Recognitive function. None of the variants or allophones of the same phoneme is used by the native speaker in the same position, where any other allophone is used.