The sounds of language

Sounds of language, Edward Sapir (1939),

Chapter Three

Powe point presented by Aseel kazum Mahmood

5th.nov.2013

The two terms ‘language’ and ‘sound’ are so common in introductory textbooks about language and linguistics and wherever there is a need to talk about communication. Sounds are essential to speech. We use speech for communication and sounds of speech are the fundamental elements of such a communication system. We consider sounds to be the basic components of speech, The ability to produce sounds is not sufficient for communication. We need a vehicle of transmitting these sounds to the ears of the hearers and that is where the study of the sounds waves comes into play. It is called acoustic phonetics. 

We can summarize all issues related by answering the question below:

What is accent? What are the most misconception about accent

in reaction to sound? Is accent the real issues about the strangeness

of language? Does accent apply to only within one

language?

Roch defines it as ‘’the different pronunciation of the same language by people from different geographical places, social classes, ages or educational background…etc.

Sapir defines it as” it ‘’as the total acoustic effect produced by a series of slight but specific phonetic errors for the very good reason that we have never made clear to ourselves our own phonetic stock in trade.’’

Yet a complete inventory of the acoustic resources of all the European languages, the languages nearer home, while unexpectedly large, would still fall far short of conveying a just idea of the true range of human articulation. In many of the languages of Asia, Africa, and aboriginal America there are whole classes of sounds that most of us have no knowledge of. They are not necessarily more difficult of enunciation than sounds more familiar to our ears; they merely involve such muscular adjustments of the organs of speech as we have never habituated ourselves to. It may be safely said that the total number of possible sounds is greatly in excess of those actually in use

we find it difficult to believe that the range of possible speech sounds is indefinitely large?

firstly; our habit of conceiving the sound as a simple, unanalyzable impression instead of as the resultant of a number of distinct muscular adjustments that take place simultaneously.

Secondly; the muscles of our speech organs have early in life become exclusively accustomed to the particular adjustments and systems of adjustment that are required to produce the traditional sounds of the language.

Of course the power to produce these inhibited adjustments is not entirely lost, but the extreme difficulty we experience in learning the new sounds of foreign languages is sufficient evidence of the strange rigidity that has set in for most people in the voluntary control of the speech organs.

Adetailed account of the organs mentioned belwo:

The lungs & bronchial tubes : The glottal cords and the larynx: Tongue, lips,teeth, palate and vulva. The glottal cords. The nose.

a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are [p], pronounced with the lips; [t], pronounced with the front of the tongue; [k], pronounced with the back of the tongue; [h], pronounced in the throat; [f] and [s], pronounced by forcing air through a narrow channel (fricatives); and [m] and [n], which have air flowing through the nose (nasals). Contrasting with consonants are vowels.’’

Type Manner

The “stops” or “explosives The breath may be completely stopped for a moment at some definite point in the oral cavity. The “spirants” or “fricatives,”.” where the breath may be continuously obstructed through a narrow passage, not entirely checked. Examples of such as they are called are s and z and y. The “laterals,” are semi-stopped. There is a true stoppage at the central point of articulation, but the breath is allowed to escape through the two side passages or through one of them. These sounds are the “trills” or “rolled consonants,” in which the stoppage of the breath may be rapidly intermittent;

-The contact is either between the root of the tongue and the throat, -some part of the tongue and a point on the palate (as in k or ch or l), -some part of the tongue and the teeth (as in the English th of thick and then),- the teeth and one of the lips (practically always the upper teeth and lower lip, as in f), -or the two lips (as in p or English w)

Speech sounds can differ from one another in three ways:

1- stress2- pitch3- quality

we can put any sound into its proper place by the appropriate answer to four main questions:

What is the position of the glottal cords during its articulation?

Does the breath pass into the mouth alone or is it also allowed to stream into the nose?

Does the breath pass freely through the mouth or is it impeded at some point and, if so, in what manner?

What are the precise points of articulation in the mouth?

Furthermore, understanding and recognizing the message delivered by the sound or sound sequence is influenced by other factors: prosodic such as

1-stress, 2-pitch, 3-intonation, 4-rhythm,5- voice quality,6- loudness, etc., and paralinguistic, such as context of situation.