I.

THE PRODUCTION OF SPEECH SOUNDS

SPEECH SOUNDS PRODUCTION PROCESSES

The production of speech sounds involves several actions:
a) A source of energy, namely the lungs, which are responsible for the initiation process. b) A
vibrator, namely, the vocal folds, which are responsible for the voicing (or phonation)
process. This process occurs at the larynx.
c) A particular configuration of the organs located above the larynx (or supraglottal organs).
The first organ is the velum (or the soft palate), which is responsible for the oro-nasal
process. The articulation or almost all speech sounds occurs in the mouth. The articulation
is the process through which we can differentiate most speech sounds, by taking into
consideration both the place of articulation and the manner of articulation.
In other words, from an articulatory phonetics point of view, the production of speech sounds
involves four processes:
a) The initiation process.
b) The phonation process.
c) The oro-nasal process.
d) The articulations process.

AIRSTREAMS
All speech sounds are made by some kind of muscular contraction. As for the articulation of
English sounds, the only source of energy is the lungs. There are other sources of energy but
are not relevant in the study of English pronunciation, such as the click sounds in Xhosa and
Zulu.
The lungs take in air (for breathing) and then, as some air is expelled, the brain sends
messages to different organs to modify the air in various ways in order to create different
types of sound. Thus, a pulmonic airstream is created by some air being pushed out of lungs,
and since it travels outwards, it is known as egressive. Any sound that is produced by air
coming from the lungs is described as being the result of an egressive pulmonic airstream.
All English speech sounds, like almost all speech sounds in languages of the world, are made
by an egressive pulmonic airstream. The airstream provided by the lungs undergoes
important modifications in the upper parts of the respiratory tract before it acquires the
quality of a speech sound. The first organ in which the airstream obstructed and modified is
the vocal folds.
First of all, it passes through the trachea which is an empty pipe that does not have any
significant effect on the airstream, and then through the larynx which contains the vocal
folds.
After passing through the larynx the air goes through what is known as the vocal tract, which
ends at the mouth and nostrils. The vocal tract is divided into two parts. The first is the oral
cavity and the second is the nasal cavity.
1
During speaking, airstream is subject to many modifications due the use of a complex set of
muscles that changes the shapes of the vocal tract. It is important to know the different parts
of the vocal tract. These parts are called articulators.

ARTICULATORS
The larynx and vocal folds
The larynx is located in the neck. Its main structure is made of two large hollow cartilages:
thyroid cartilage on top and the cricoid cartilage below it. These two elements are attached to
the trachea. The vocal folds (commonly known as the vocal cords) are located in the thyroid
cartilage. The front of the thyroid cartilage can easily be noticed by touching one’s neck –
particularly if you are man and slim. It is the prominent point known as Adam’s Apple. In
adult males, Adam’s Apple is even more visible, compared to females and children, because
their larynxes are larger. This is why men’s voices are generally lower in pith (a deeper
voice) than women’s and children.

Figure 1: The larynx and the vocal folds as viewed from the left side.

The vocal folds are two folds of ligament and elastic tissue which may be in different
positions by muscular actions. The inner edges of these folds are around 17-22 mm long in
men and 11-16 mm long in women. The opening between the folds is called the Glottis.
Biologically, the vocal folds play many other roles such as preventing foreign bodies from
entering into the lungs, or enclosing the air into the lungs to help in performing great
muscular efforts. As for the production of speech sounds, the vocal folds can take many
positions as illustrated in figure 2 below.
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Figure 2 Positions of the Vocal Folds

a) The glottis may be held tightly together with the air blocked below it. This produces
a glottal stop [ʔ] which occur in English.
b) The glottis may be held wide open as for normal breathing for the articulation of
voiceless consonants like [s] in sip.
c) The vocal folds brought sufficiently close together that they vibrate when air is
pushed out of the lungs. In other words, the vibration is caused by the compressed
air coming from the lungs and forcing the folds to open and then due to the reduced
air pressure the elastic folds come together once more. This vibrating can be felt by
touching the neck during the articulation of a vowel sound or a voiced consonant
sound like [z] in zoo. The frequency of this opening and closing of the glottis can
be measured. In a normal voice of a man, the frequency is between 100 and 150
times a second and in a normal woman’s voice it might well be between 200 and
325 times a second. It is possible within limits to control the speed of vibration of
our vocal folds which results in changing the pitch of the voice produced in the
larynx. There are many modes of vibrations that result in different voice qualities
such as breathy and creaky voices. Human beings are also capable of controlling
the pressure from the lungs to modify the size of the puff of air which escapes at
each vibration of the vocal folds. This results in a corresponding change of the
loudness of the sound.
d) A normal whisper can be realized by a tight closure of the glottis. But it’s possible
also to make a whisper by holding the vocal folds at the voiceless positions.
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Articulators above the larynx

Figure 3 Articulators Above the Larynx

1) The pharynx is a tube which begins just above the larynx. It is about 7 cm long in
women and about 8 cm in men, and at its top end it is divided into two, one part
being the back of the oral cavity and the other being the beginning of the way
through the nasal cavity. If you look in your mirror with your mouth open, you can
see the back of the pharynx.
2) The soft palate or velum is seen in the diagram in a position that allows air to pass
through the nose and through the mouth. Yours is probably in that position now, but
often in speech it is raised so that air cannot escape through the nose. The other
 important thing about the soft palate is that it is one of the articulators that can be
touched by the tongue. When we make the sounds /k/, /g/ the tongue is in contact
with the lower side of the soft palate, and we call these velar consonants.
3) The hard palate is often called the "roof of the mouth". You can feel its smooth
curved surface with your tongue. A consonant made with the tongue close to the
hard palate is called palatal. The sound /j/ in 'yes' is palatal.
4) The alveolar ridge is between the top front teeth and the hard palate. You can feel
its shape with your tongue. Its surface is really much rougher than it feels, and is
covered with little ridges. You can only see these if you have a mirror small enough
4
to go inside your mouth, such as those used by dentists. Sounds made with the
tongue touching here (such as /t/, /d/, /n/) are called alveolar.
5) The tongue is a very important articulator and it can be moved into many different
places and different shapes. It is usual to divide the tongue into different parts,
though there are no clear dividing lines within its structure. Fig. 2 shows the tongue
on a larger scale with these parts shown: tip, blade, front, back and root. (This
use of the ward "front" often seems rather strange at first.)
6) The teeth (upper and lower) are usually shown in diagrams like Fig. 1 only at the
front of the mouth, immediately behind the lips. This is for the sake of a simple
diagram, and you should remember that most speakers have teeth to the sides of
their mouths, back almost to the soft palate. The tongue is in contact with the upper
side teeth for most speech sounds. Sounds made with the tongue touching the front
teeth, such as English /θ/, /ð/ are called dental.
7) The lips are important in speech. They can be pressed together (when we produce
the sounds /p/, /b/, brought into contact with the teeth (as in /f/, /v/), or rounded to
produce the lip-shape for vowels like /u:/. Sounds in which the lips are in contact
with each other are called bilabial, while those with lip-to-teeth contact are called
labiodental. The tongue is very important in speech sounds articulation. It is an
active articulator, i.e. it moves to touch or to come near to many articulators. Thus,
it is devided into 5 sub-divisions, as illustrated in figure 4, with the tip being the
extreme part, then the blade, the front, the back and finally the root.

Figure 4 Sub-divisions of the Tongue

NOTES
The seven articulators described above are the main ones used in speech, but there are a few
other things to remember:
i. The larynx could also be described as an articulator - a very complex and
independent one. It is the organ that is responsible for voicing, and it does not
require any other articulator to come close to or touch in order to make sounds.
ii. The jaws are sometimes called articulators; certainly we move the lower jaw a lot in
speaking. But the jaws are not articulators in the same way as the others, because
they cannot themselves make contact with other articulators.
iii. Although there is practically nothing active that we can do with the nose and the
nasal cavity when speaking, they are a very important part of our equipment for
5
making sounds, particularly nasal consonants such as /m/, /n/. Again, we cannot
really describe the nose and the nasal cavity as articulators in the same sense as (1)
to (7) above.
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II. VOWELS AND CONSONANTS
The words vowel and consonant are very familiar ones, but when we study the sounds of
speech scientifically we find that it is not easy to define exactly what they mean. The most
common view is that vowels are sounds in which there is no obstruction to the flow of air as
it passes from the larynx to the lips. A doctor who wants to look at the back of a patient's
mouth often asks them to say "ah"; making this vowel sound is the best way of presenting an
unobstructed view. But if we make a sound like /s/, /d/ it can be clearly felt that we are
making it difficult or impossible for the air to pass through the mouth. Most people would
have no doubt that sounds like /s/, /d/ should be called consonants and the first sounds in
‘apple’ or ‘eat’ should be called vowels.

We begin the study of English sounds by looking at vowels, and it is necessary to say
something about vowels in general before turning to the vowels of English. We need to know
in what ways vowels differ from each other.

In human speech, sound in which the flow of air from the lungs passes through the mouth,
which functions as a resonance chamber, with minimal obstruction and without audible
friction; e.g., the i in “fit,” and the a in “pack.” From the viewpoint of articulatory phonetics,
vowels are classified according to the position of the tongue and lips and, sometimes,
according to whether or not the air is released through the nose.

The first matter to consider is the shape and position of the tongue. It is usual to simplify the
very complex possibilities by describing just two things: firstly, the vertical distance between
the upper surface of the tongue and the palate and, secondly, the part of the tongue, between
front and back, which is raised highest. Let us look at some examples:

Make a vowel like the /i:/ in the English ward 'see' and look in a mirror; if you tilt your head
back slightly you will be able to see that the tongue is held up close to the roof of the mouth.
Now make /æ/ vowel (as in the ward 'cat') and notice how the distance between the surface of
the tongue and the roof of the mouth is now much greater. The difference between /i:/ and /æ/
is a difference of tongue height, and we would describe /i:/ as a relatively close vowel and /æ/
as a relatively open vowel. Tongue height can be changed by moving the tongue up or dawn,
or moving the lower jaw up or dawn. Usually we use tongue combination of the two sorts of
movement, but when drawing side-of-the-head
diagrams such as Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 it is usually
found simpler to illustrate tongue shapes for
vowels as if tongue height were altered by
tongue movement alone, without any
accompanying jaw movement. So we would
illustrate the tongue height difference between
/i:/ and /æ/ as in figure 5.

Figure 5 Tongue positions for /iː/ and /ӕ/

 7
In making the two vowels described above, it is the front part of the tongue that is raised.
We could therefore describe /i:/ and /æ/ as comparatively front vowels. By changing the
shape of the tongue we can produce vowels in which a different part of the tongue is the
highest point. A vowel in which the back of the tongue is the highest point is called a back
vowel. If you make the vowel in the ward 'calm', which we write phonetically as /ɑ:/, you
can see that the back of the tongue is raised. Compare this with /æ/ in front of a mirror; /æ/
is a front vowel and /ɑ:/ is a back vowel. The vowel in 'too' /u:/ is also a comparatively
back vowel, but compared with /ɑ:/ it is close.
So now we have seen how four vowels differ from each other; we can show this in a
simple diagram.
Front Back

Close /i:/ /u:/

Open /æ/ /ɑ:/

Figure 6 Simplified vowel chart

However, this diagram is rather inaccurate. Phoneticians need a very accurate way of
classifying vowels, and have developed a set of vowels which are arranged in a close-open,
front-back diagram similar to the one above but which are not the vowels of any particular
language. These cardinal vowels are a standard reference system, and people being trained in
phonetics at an advanced level have to learn to make them accurately and recognize them
correctly. If you learn the cardinal vowels, you are not learning to make English sounds, but
you are learning about the range of vowels that the human vocal apparatus can make, and
also learning a useful way of describing, classifying and comparing vowels.

CARDINAL VOWELS
Phoneticians need a reference system to describe the tongue position for any vowel in any
accent or any language. The English phonetician Daniel Jones came up with what is known
as cardinal vowels. The system is made of a four-sided shape (figure 7) divided horizontally
and vertically into six trapeziums. The exact shape is not very important and a square or a
rectangle would be acceptable. There are eight (8) cardinal vowels represented in this chart,
lying on in the four corners and at the outer intersections of the dividing lines. They are set
in a specific order from the top-left corner to the top-right corner in a counter-clockwise
manner. Those eight vowels are labeled as the primary cardinal vowels, because they are the
most familiar vowel soundsto the speaker of most European and non-European languages. It
should be noted that there are other cardinal vowels (Known as Secondary cardinal vowels)
that sound less common, and are none of our concern.
Unlike to the table in figure 6, the shape in figure 7 is not made boxes to insert symbols in, it
is rather a space that mirrors the space in the oral cavity where the tongue moves to different
positions to make vowel sounds. Thus, vowels of any accent or languages may be in any
place inside the chart.
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Figure 7 Primary cardinal vowels

For cardinal vowel 1 [i], the tongue is as close and as front as possible. At the opposite
corner, there is cardinal vowel 5 [ɑ], which is as open and as back as possible. Cardinal
vowel 8 [u] is as close and as back as possible. At the opposite corner, there is cardinal
vowel 4 [a] which is as open and as front as possible. These four cardinal vowels are the
extreme of human capacity to produce vowel sounds without an audible friction. That is, for
instance, if we raise our tongue in the [i] position, even slightly, towards the palate, a hissing
noise would start to be heard, possibly very similar to the second consonant sound in
measure /meʒər/. cardinal vowel 2,3,6, and 7 are lie in the intermediate positions. Cardinal
vowels 2 and 3 are defined as having the tongue as front as possible, and in equidistant steps
from 1 [i] to 4 [a]. on the other side of the chart, there are 6 [ɔ] and [o] also at equidistant
steps from 5 [ɑ] to 8 [u], but defined as being as back as possible.
As we have seen before, vowels are classified according the horizontal position of the tongue
(frontness/backness), the vertical tongue position (closeness/openness), and the lip-position.
The lips may be in three possible positions:
Rounded: where the corners of the lips are brought towards each other and the lips push
forward as in kissing.
Spread: where the corners of the lips are moved away from each other as for a
smile. Neutral: where lip muscles are relaxed and not noticeably rounded or spread.

As for the primary cardinal vowels, cardinal vowels 6, 7, and 8 have rounded lips, and the
others are unrounded.

The purpose of this kind of chart is to be used as a tool to describe vowel sounds in any
accent and language. However, it does not indicate the lip-position.
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III. ENGLISH VOWELS

INTRODUCTION:
Most people on being asked how many vowels there are in English, reply ‘five’ or ‘six’ (a, e,
i, o and u and sometime y). This answer is fine if we are talking about spelling. There are five
vowel character in the English alphabet and most western European language. These letter
are used to represent a variety of vowel qualities.
In this lesson, we need to keep sounds separate from spelling. English has a large vowel
inventory, but a very limited number of letters, which results in a number of inconsistencies
between spelling and pronunciation (as seen in the previous lessons).
All English sounds are produced by an egressive pulmonic air-stream; i.e. by expelling air
from the lungs through the mouth and/or the nose. All English vowel sounds are voiced; i.e.,
the vocal folds vibrate during their production, and the air escapes through the mouth alone,
with a minimal or no obstruction. Unlike other languages, such as French, which have vowel
sounds with the air that escapes through the mouth and through the nose (e.g. words like:
maman, maron, tente…).

CATEGORIZATION OF ENGLISH VOWELS:

English vowels are described in terms of five dimensions:

1) Vertical tongue position (closeness/openness).
We ask the question: is the tongue relatively high; i.e., close to the roof of the mouth,
or low, or somewhere in between?
2) Horizontal tongue position.
we ask the question: is the tongue relatively far forward in the mouth, or at the back, or
somewhere in between?
(The vertical and the horizontal dimensions give us the area trapezium in the vowel
chart.) 3) Lip-position.
We ask the question: are the lips rounded, spread or neutral?
4) Vowel length.
 We ask the question: Is the vowel relatively long or short?
5) Pure or gliding.
We ask the question: does the tongue stays in one position or does it move from one
position to a second?

We can thus classify all English vowel sounds into three categories as illustrated in figure 8
below: Short monophthongs, long monophthongs, and diphthongs.

10
English vowel sounds
20 phonemes
8 Diphthongs

12 Monophthongs

7 Short monophthongs 5 Long monophthongs Figure 8

English vowel sounds classification

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ENGLISH MONOPHTHONG:

English has a set of 12 monophthongs divided into two subgroups of short and long
monophthongs.
English short monophthongs:

English has seven short monophthongs, the symbols of which are: ɪ, e, ӕ, ʌ, ə, ɒ and ʊ. Each
of these monophthongs is described in relation to cardinal vowels. In figure 9 below, we can
see the position of each one inside the space which represent the range of possible movement
of the tongue.
Figure 9 English Short Monophthongs

Let us now describe each of the English short monophthongs:

1. /ɪ/
Description:
The diagram shows that this vowel is in the close and front trapezium. The lips are
only slightly spread. However, compared to cardinal vowel 1 [i], it is more open, i.e.,
nearer to the close-mid tongue height, and nearer to the center.
Examples:
fish, sit, ship, and is.

2. /e/
Description:
This is a fully front vowel between cardinal vowels 2 [e] and 3 [ɛ]. The lips are slightly
spread.
Examples: fresh, set, neck, and net.

3. /ӕ/
Description:
This is a front open vowel. The lips are slightly spread. As we can see in the chart, this
vowel sounds is slightly less open than cardinal vowel 4 [a].
Examples: man, sat, back, and had.
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4. /ə/
Description:
This is a mid-central vowel, called “schwa”, that is, it is between open-mid and close
mid tongue height. The lip position is neutral.

Examples: around, better, emphasis, spoken, and balloon.

5. /ʌ/
 Description:
This is a central vowel, and the diagram shows that it is slightly more open than the
open-mid tongue height. The lip position is neutral.

Examples: cut, hut, rush, and come.

6. /ɒ/
Description:
This is an almost fully back vowel, and between cardinal vowels 5 [ɑ] and 6 [ɔ]. The
lips are slightly rounded.

Examples: lock, not, cross, and front.

7. /ʊ/
Description:
The diagram shows that this vowel is in the close back area. The lips are slightly
rounded. The nearest cardinal vowel is 8 [u], but we can see on the diagram that /ʊ/ is
more open and nearer to central.

Examples: put, pull, would, foot, and cook.

English long monophthongs:

English has five long monophthongs, represented in the IPA with these symbols: iː, ɜː, ɑː, ɔː,
and uː. Each of these monophthongs is described in relation to cardinal vowels and the
closest short counterpart. Their tongue positions on the vowel diagram are provided in figure
10.

These long monophthongs tend to be longer than the short ones in similar contexts, because
the length of English vowels varies very much according to the context (such us what
precedes or follow the vowel sound) and the presence or absence of stress.

In transcription, we use a symbol and two dots on the left to indicate the relatively longer
realization compared to the short monophthongs.

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It should be noted that these long monophthongs are different from the short monophthongs
in terms of quality (tongue and lip position) and length. The best way to see the difference is
to compare minimal pairs of short and long monophthongs. This is the reason why different
symbols are used to represent pair of short and long monophthongs. The only exception is the
short /ə/ and the long /ɜː/, though there is not any noticeable difference in quality, we use two
different symbols, most importantly because /ɜː/ occurs only in stressed syllables and /ə/
occurs only in unstressed syllables.
Figure 10 English Long Monophthongs

We will now look at each of these long monophthongs individually:

1. /iː/
Description:
This vowel is in the close front area. The nearest cardinal vowel is 1 [i], but the tongue
is slightly lower and nearer to central and the lips are only slightly spread. Compared
to the short /ɪ/, the tongue in /iː/ noticeably higher and pushed more to the front
position. Examples: see, we, beef, reason, machine, receive, and key.

2. /ɜː/
Description:
This is a mid-central vowel, i.e., the center of the tongue is raised between the close
mid and the open-mid tongue position. The lip positon is neutral.

Examples: her, serve, turn, sir, word, earth, and journey.

3. /ɑː/
Description:
This is an open back vowel. The nearest cardinal vowel is 5 [ɑ], but as we can see in
the figure 10 it is not as back as this. The lips are in a neutral position. Compared to
the short /ʌ/, the jaws are considerably separated and the tongue is push lower and
backwards, but not as low as cardinal vowel 5 [ɑ].

Examples: part, heart, last, calm, aunt, and laugh.

4. /ɔː/
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Description:

This is a nearly fully back vowel and tongue is between cardinal vowels 6 [ɔ] and 7
[o], and nearer to the latter. The lips are quite rounded. In comparison to the short /ɒ/,
which does not occur in General American, the longer /ɔː/ is noticeably more open
 with a slightly more rounded lip shape.
Examples: born, war, court, door, fault, talk, saw, bought, brought, and alternative to
/ʊə/ in poor, tour, sure…etc.

5. /uː/
Description:
This is a close back vowel. The nearest cardinal vowel is 8 [u], but the tongue in /uː/ is
much less back and lower, while the lips are not very rounded.

Examples: rude, June, food, do, group, chew, blue, shoe, and juice.

Notes:

i. For all pair of short and long monophthongs, a difference in length is accompanied by a
difference in quality, except /ɜ:/ and /ə/. These two vowels are virtually similar in
quality, but are represented using two different symbols. That is because,
phonologically speaking, the function of each one of them is different, i.e. they occur
in different contexts for different functions.

Whereas /ɜ:/ occurs only in stressed syllables, the schwa /ə/ occurs solely in unstressed
syllables. For instance, in the word ‘inter’ /ɪnˈtɜ:(r)/ the stress is on the second syllable
which contain the vowel /ɜ:/. Whereas, in the word ‘intercept’ the stress is on the third
syllable /ɪntəˈsept/ and the vowel /ɜ:/ does not occur and there is a schwa /ə/ instead.

ii. /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ occur in unstressed syllables but, unlike the schwa, they may occur in stressed
syllables as well. Most unstressed syllables contain a schwa /ə/, which makes it the
most frequently occurring sound in English. It should be noted that many languages
do not have a vowel sound that occurs in most unstressed syllables. English learners
of such languages may find it difficult to pronounce unstressed syllables. Arab native
speakers for instance, tend to stress unstressed syllables and de-stressed stressed
syllables.

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