THE PRODUCTION

OF SPEECH SOUNDS
 ORGANS AND PROCESSES

The production of speech sounds begins with a series of mental operations in

the brain where the commands that will be executed by our speech organs are
issued.

After the mental operations we come to the physical production of sounds.

This physical production of a speech sound may be divided into four

processes:
1- initiation
2- phonation
3- oro-nasal
4- articulation
 1. THE INITIATION PROCESS

Speech sounds are produced by an air stream that originates in the lungs
and is pushed upwards through the trachea and the oral and nasal cavities.
In other words, speech sounds are initiated by a pulmonic egressive air
stream. This air stream provides the source of energy for speech.
 THE PHONATION PROCESS

The phonation process occurs at the larynx (a cartilage casing) at the

upper end of the trachea.
The larynx contains two horizontal folds of tissue known as the vocal
folds and the gap between these vocal folds is called the glottis.
The vocal folds can be manipulated by the speaker and brought into a
variety of positions which alter the shape of the glottis. The sound that
will be produced depends on the shape that the glottis adopts.
Three positions can be distinguished:

1- closed glottis. The vocal folds are brought close together so that no air can pass
between them. The speech sound resulting from the closure of the glottis is the
glottal stop which can be heard preceding a forcefully pronounced vowel it can
also replace [t] in words such as football, bottle, bit.

2- Narrow glottis. When the vocal folds are brought together in such a way that
only a narrow gap is left for the air stream to pass through, the passage of air
makes the vocal folds vibrate. The resulting sound waves characterize voiced
sounds.

3- Open glottis. This is the state that the glottis assumes in normal breathing. The
vocal folds are spread and do not vibrate. It results in the production of voiceless
sounds.
 THE ORO-NASAL PROCESS

Having passed through the larynx and the pharynx, the air stream can go either into the nasal cavity or
the oral cavity. This is done by the velum (a soft flap of muscle and tissue in the back of the roof of
the mouth). Its end –the uvula- is visible in a wide-open mouth.
The velum can be manipulated by the speaker. It has two linguistically significant positions:

1- raised velum: when the velum is raised and pressed against the back of the pharynx it prevents the
entry of air into the nasal cavity. The air stream emerges through the oral cavity producing oral
sounds like the vowels or consonants such as [v], [f] and [l]

2- Lowered velum: when the velum is not raised against the back of the pharynx the air stream has
access to the nasal cavity. If at the same time the oral cavity is blocked somewhere, the entire air
stream passes through the nose and the result is a nasal sound such as in [m] and [n]
 THE ARTICULATION PROCESS

Finally, the articulation process takes place in the mouth and through it we can differentiate most
speech sounds.

In the mouth we can distinguish between the oral cavity (which acts as a resonator) and the
articulators which can be active or passive.
The following are all the articulators:
1- upper and lower lips
2- upper and lower teeth
3- tongue (tip, blade, front, back)
4- roof of the mouth (alveolar ridge, palate and velum)

So speech sounds are distinguished from each other in terms of place (where) and manner (how) of
articulation.
 A)

B)

C)