PHO103 - Speech Anatomy

[0:04] Hello! In the following, I'm going to introduce you to the basic concepts of speech anatomy, where three central mechanisms are responsible for the production of speech. and we will look at them in detail. Respiration? where the lungs produce the necessary energy in form of a stream of air. Fonation, where the larynx serves as a modifier to the air stream and is responsible for nation.

[0:37] and articulation, where the vocal tract modifies and modulates the air stream by means of several articulators. Let us look at these mechanisms in detail, and let's start with respiration. now, before any sound can be produced at all. there has to be some form of energy. In speech, The energy takes the form of a stream of air. Normally, coming from the lungs.

[1:11] Lung air is referred to, so this is The air. Bye. and "Lang Air" is normally referred to as. pulmonic. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. I This respiratory system is used in normal breathing, and in speech. What is interesting is the way we change our normal pattern of breathing to enable us to speak.

[1:50] Normally we breathe in and out every two or three seconds. You can time it if you like. When we speak, We breathe in quickly. and then we let the air out very very slowly and it might be five seconds before we breathe in again. Some people can speak for quite a long time before needing to breathe in. How much can you say in one breath?

[2:20] Breathe in. and then start counting slowly. - one two, 3 for five, and so on. you should be able to get up to nine or ten easily. And if you take a deep breath, 20 shouldn't be a problem. So during normal breathing, inhalation and exhalation cover roughly the same interval. In speech?

[2:53] inhalation is relatively short, whereas the exhalation period, during which the audible output is produced, covers a relatively long period. So when we speak, our lungs slow down the flow of air. The air coming from the lungs, here are the lungs, then move through our trachea. This is the trachea.

[3:25] some people call it windpipe into the throat. and on the way the air Parsis the larynx. Let's look at the larynx. next. Now the primary function of the larynx which you can see here, so let's enlarge it a little bit. the primary function Primary biological function, to be precise, of the larynx is to act as a valve. by closing off air from the lungs or preventing foreign substances from entering the trachea.

[4:01] in speech production. The larynx modifies the airflow from the lungs in such a way as to produce an acoustic signal. The air that comes from the lungs, so this sort of air Parses between the vocal cords. folds. Now, here you find the vocal folds. sometimes called vocal cords.

[4:35] The most important effect of vocal fold or vocal chord action is the production of audible vibration. a buzzing sound known as voice. or vibration Similar to the effect of blowing air through a rubber band. So let's demonstrate what happens if I blow air through a rubber band. Here I have a small rubber band. Now what happens if I blow air through it like this? Yeah.

[5:05] *sneezes* Well? What? You hear? and what you can see is the effect of vibration. the Blowing of air through a rubber band creates an audible vibration which is relatively soft here because there's no amplifying or no resonating body around it. Now each pulse of vibration represents a single opening and closing movement of the vocal folds.

[5:42] The number of cycles per second depends on age and sex. Average male voices vibrate at around 120 times or cycles per second. Women's voices average something like 220 times. cycles per second. Depending on the type of laryngeal action, different modes of phonation can be distinguished. in detail now. Voicelessness or nil phonation is the default.

[6:17] a type of phonation, well it's not real phonation, which is used during normal breathing it requires a more or less wide opening of the glottis So here you see the glottis, resulting in glottal silence, provided that the rate of transglottal airflow is below the level that would generate local turbulence of the glottis. normal voice or just voice. Thank you. refers to normal vocal cord vibration occurring along most of the length of the glottis, the Vocal cords.

[6:54] vibrate. Whisper! You can all whisper, can't you? Well, whisper requires a far greater constriction than the voiceless setting of the glottis, and is generally achieved by adducting the vocal cords while maintaining an opening between retinoids the cartilages to which the vocal folds are attached. in breathy voice, so this is breathy voice.

[7:30] in breathy voice, Normal vocal cord vibration is accompanied by some continuous turbulent airflow. Well, and creaky voice? this is some sort of creaky voice, which you can do especially well early in the morning. Well, creaky voice or creak is a phonation mode characterized by a low frequency of vibration of the vocal cords with a very low opening quotient and often some irregularity in periodicity.

[8:07] And finally, Do you remember the Bee Gees? Something like that. They were pretty good at singing in falsetto. The phonation mode where the vocal cords are stretched longitudinally so that they become relatively thin in cross-section. Thus, falsetto is primarily heard as a phonatory setting in singing. Well...

[8:38] And what is happening next? Respiration? Phonation? Well, once the air passes through the trachea and the glottis, it enters a long tubular structure known as the vocal tract Here is the vocal tract again Let's enlarge it a little bit. Okay. Now this is the main component where we articulate speech sounds. In the vocal tract, the air stream is affected by the action of several mobile organs.

[9:11] the active articulators. the Active articulators are actively as the word says, involved in the production of speech sounds. The main active articulators are the lower lip actively involved in rounded vowels such as "u" or in consonants like "a fa" the tongue, which is involved in the production of all vowels and most consonants, the glottis with which we produce Ah.

[9:47] And the uvula, which is actively involved in some consonants such as the so-called uvulatril "a" but which also remains passive in others such as "Aha!" This is why we represented the view of the uvula in a special color here. The active articulators are supported by a number of passive articulators which you can see on this screen. These are specific organs or locations in the vocal tract which are involved in the production of speech sounds but do not move.

[10:29] Don't tell me that your teeth move, then it must be the third set of teeth. For example, just to pick one of them, the Alveolar Ridge, which is involved in consonants such as "ata" where the tongue touches the alveolar ridge, or assa, where friction noise is created between the tongue and the alveolar ridge. The production of speech sounds through all these organs, active and passive articulators, is referred to as articulation.

[11:04] Well, This is it. you should now understand the basic mechanisms of speech production with its three stages: Respiration, phone nation, and articulation. By the way, before I finish, let me remind you that in the toolbox of the Virtual Linguistics Campus you have permanent free access to our e-lecture notes, which are produced on this active board behind me during the recording of such a video.

[11:40] All you need is a free VLC account. So join us and become a member of the Virtual Linguistics Campus community. Okay, that's it for now. See you again in one of our e-lectures on speech science and if you like on the Virtual Linguistics campus.