Overview This series of articles from the Human Communication 101 series is entitled ENGLISH SPEECH SOUNDS 101. It introduces the reader to articulatory phonetics, the study of how the human vocal tract is used to produce speech sounds. In doing so, it identifies all sounds that are…
Human beings are capable of uttering hundreds of sounds. If we fall and hurt ourselves, we may well let out a shriek or a pained, strangled sound of hurt – something akin to “Ow!” or “Argh!” However, not all uttered sounds such as these are speech…
Which variety of speech? The particular world language at the heart of this series of articles (English Speech Sounds 101), and this website, is English. There are, of course, many varieties of English: American English, Australian English, Caribbean English, Singaporean English, Nigerian English, and so…
All English speech sounds are made on an outgoing (egressive) airstream. The process begins as air from the lungs (pulmonic air) passes upwards through the windpipe (trachea) and through the larynx. Larynx Within the larynx are two vocal folds. These are almost triangular in shape and…
Normative data Normative data refers to data that characterize what is typical of a particular large group at a specific point in time. Such data provide summary descriptions of the group’s behavior. So, for example, in order to understand the order of acquisition of speech sounds, researchers…
What’s happening? Consider the following short text. Davinda and Kathryn had a row in the park. What do you think actually happened here? Do you think that Davinda and Kathryn spent some time propelling a boat with oars, rowing on a lake…
It should be clear from our discussion of transcribing speech sounds that English orthography is not a satisfactory system. What is required is a scheme that has a direct, one-to-one correspondence between an actual speech sound and the symbol used to represent that sound. One…
