The speech organs

Airstream mechanisms

Consonants – place of articulation, manner of articulation, voicing

Vowels – height, backness, rounding

The vocal tracts

Suprelaryngeal or supraglottal vocal tract (the oral cavity)

The larynx – contains vocal folds glottis
Sublaryngeal or subglottal vocal tract - the
pulmonic cavity

Speech organs
Alveolar ridge – ‘t’
Velum – oral stops (raised), nasal stops (lowered)
Uvula – teardrop shaped flap that is an extension of the velum (can be trilled)
Velum – flap of muscle at the back of the hard palate – shaded pink
The hard palate – roof of the mouth
Alveolar ridge - between the top front teeth and the hard
palate

FOR HOMEWORK … FAMILIARISE YOURSELF WITH SPEECH ORGANS (use

http://www.australianlinguistics.com)
Drawing and naming speech organs?? (Textbook around pg10?)

Speech as aerodynamic activity

Three functional components or phrases of speech sound production

Initiation (getting air moving)
Phonation (what happens to the passage of air at the vocal folds)
Articulation (what the speech articulators are doing to modify the airstream)

Initiation
How to get sound going – causing air to move through the vocal tract
Movement of air - confining or expanding space increases or
decreases air pressure
The different ways to initiate speech are also referred to as
Airstream Mechanisms

Phonation
Phonation is what happens to the airflow through the vocal tract
at the larynx (e.g. egressive / ingressive etc)
The state of the glottis - vocal fold configuration and resulting
phonation types (e.g. voicing, voicelessness)
Articulation
The approach or contact of two speech organs above the larynx
Modification of sound generated by phonation (voicing or silence) or other types of noise
sources (e.g hissing notes or frication in [s])

Airstream mechanisms

Airstream provides energy which is transformed into acoustic energy for speech
Normal airstream for speech is produced by breathing outwards (i.e egressive pulmonic
airstream)
Other (egressive and ingressive) airstream mechanisms
can also be used for speech– non-pulmonic
Transformation of the energy into the acoustic energy
needed for speech comes later

Pulmonic airstream mechanism = air from the lungs –

pulmonic egressive.
(all meaningful vowels and consonants in English)
Ejective sounds – also EGRESSIVE but not Pulmonic.
Glo2alic egressive airstream.
Implosive sounds – INGRESSIVE movement of pharynx air by
acDon of the gloKs. Glo2alic ingressive airstream.
Click sounds – velaric ingressive airstream mechanism,
movement of mouth air by action of the tongue (clicks).
High to low pressure = airstream
Breathing in (or inspiration) – reduces pressure in our lungs, and the air flows in to equalise
the difference between atmospheric pressure and pressure inside the lungs; to breathe out
(expiration) we increase the lung pressure

Breathing control
Quiet breathing – 40% inspiration, 60% expiration
Breathing for speech – 10% inspiration, 90% expiration

Vital capacity - total volume of air that can be expelled from

the lungs after inspiration