AND THEIR FUNCTIONS

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 1167.

THE ORGANS OF SPEECH

To understand how speech sounds are produced students of English must have some knowledge of the organs of speech and their functions.

The human speaking apparatus consists of the following main parts which participate in the formation of the speech sounds.

The air exhaled from the lungs passes through the bronchi, then through the windpipe /trachea/ and gets into the upper part of the windpipe which is called the larynx. Inside the larynx there are two elastic folds called the vocal cords which may be kept apart or brought together. The opening between them is called the glottis. This is the usual state of the vocal cords, when we breathe out. If the tense vocal cords are brought together, the air stream forcing an opening makes them vibrate and produce voice. When the vocal cords are wide apart, the air stream passes between them freely, they do not vibrate and no voice is produced.

There is one more state of the vocal cords which results in the glottal stop. When the vocal cords are brought close together and then opened suddenly by the air stream there comes a sort of coughing noise, a kind of the “click” of the vocal cords. This sound is called the glottal stop.

Coming out of the larynx, the air stream passes through the pharynx (the cavity above the larynx).

The following organs of speech take part in the formation of speech sounds: the tongue; the hard and the soft palate; the upper and the lower lips, the upper and the lower teeth.

The roof of the mouth is divided into the alveoli (the teeth ridge) situated immediately behind the upper teeth, the hard palate and the soft palate ending in the uvula.

The tongue may be conventionally divided into three parts corresponding to the parts of the roof of the mouth. They are: the blade with the tip, the front and the back.

The organs of speech are divided into movable and fixed.

The movable organs of speech take active part in the articulation of speech sounds and are called active organs of speech.

The active organs of speech are: the vocal cords, the tongue, the soft palate with the uvula, the lips and the lower jaw.

The fixed speech organs with which the active organs form the obstruction are called passive organs of speech. The passive organs of speech serve as points of articulation. They are: the upper jaw, the alveoli, the hard palate and the teeth.

The mouth and the nasal cavities as well as larynx, serve as resonance chambers.

Sounds may be oral or nasal depending on the cavity through which the air passes. In English as well as in Ukrainian, there are no nasalized vowels.

The volume and the shape of the mouth resonance chamber depend on the position of the tongue, the lips, the soft palate with the uvula and the size of the mouth opening.

The work of the speech organs necessary for making speech sounds is called articulation.