Introduction to Linguistics - Lecture 4

Lecture Four, 7th of November 2007

Phonology and orthography

1. Introduction
2. Learner's Diary
3. Tasks and Quizzes
4. Evaluation
5. References


1. Introduction

Today Mr. Gibbon gave an introduction to phonetics and the world of speech sounds.


2. Learner's Diary

Words, stems and morphemes are signs. Divided in the conceptual and the real world.

There are three linguistics domains of phonetics

- Articulatory phonetics (mouth) describe how the organs produce an individual sound
- Acoustic phonetics (air) describe the analysis of the physical properties of the sound waves in the air, duration, intensity and frequency.
- Auditory phonetics (ear) describe what happen with the sound after the reception.


Articulatory phonetics

This picture of midsaggital section of the head explains the articulatory phonetic

The articulatory organs

- Lungs
- Vocal cords in the larynx (Adam's apple)

and their positions

- Uvula → with back of tongue
- Pharynx → with velum (nasals)
- Velum → soft palate (contact with tongue: velars)
- Palate → hard palate (with tongue)
- Alveolar ridge
- Upper teeth → with tongue, with lower lip
- Upper lip → with lower lip, perhaps with tongue


The sound consists of two levels

Phonemic transcription

Is the general pronunciation representation in the lexicon to distinguish between different words.

Phonetic transcription

Is the detailed representation of speech pronunciation which is based on three components.

- articulatory phonetics (about speech production)
- acoustic phonetics (about speech wave transmission)
- auditory phonetics (about speech perception)


Acoustic phonetics

The Source-Filter Model explains the acoustic phonetics and shows how speech sounds are produced. It consists of sound sources (vocal cords) and sound filters (vocal tract).

Sources

Resonant source (larynx) harmonic source
Noise sources constrictions in the speech organs to produce fricative sounds


Filters

Convert sounds in acoustic signals

Pharyngeal filter: area of the pharynx which is part of the neck and the

Nasal filter: area of the nasal cavity; produces nasal vowels and consonants

Oral filter: filtering and removing sounds

Speech waveform

The x- axis describes the time and the y - axis the amplitude. The example is the word tiger.

Phonetic software Praat

With this software Now acoustic phonetics can be done on a laptop or desktop PC. Other software are e.g. Audacity, WaveSurfer or Transcriber.


Auditory phonetics

Auditory phonetics describe how sound are received by the listener. The anatomy of the ear is a very important part to understand the processing of the sound. The ear can be divided in three parts:

- outer ear (microphone)
- middle ear (amplifier)
- inner ear (spectral transform)

3. Tasks and Quizzes

Take a look at models of the ear: summarise the functions of the outer ear, the middle ear, the inner ear

Outer ear

The outer ear includes the auricle, the auditory canal and the eardrum. It funnels sounds from the surrounding environment into the hearing system. The auricle helps to gather the sound waves, and the auditory canal then directs them to the eardrum.

Middle ear

The middle ear is an air-filled cavity which contains the smallest bones in the human body - the malleus, incus and stapes. These are connected to the eardrum on one side, and on the other side to a thin membrane-covered opening on the wall of the inner ear. The middle ear is also connected to the throat via the Eustachian tube which keeps the air pressure in the middle ear equal to that of the surrounding environment.

Inner ear

In the inner ear the auditory input is processed by the cochlea, while information affecting balance is processed by the semicircular canals. Along the entire length of the fluid filled cochlea there are tiny hair cells. These hair cells are bent when the fluid is displaced by sound waves passed on by the middle ear bones. This triggers a chemical response which activates the corresponding nerve endings. These then transmit the message to the area of the brain in charge of interpreting auditory input.

(http://www.phonak.com/consumer/hearing/howwehear/function.htm, 10.11.2007)



4. Evaluation

The lesson was interesting, but full of information. Most of them not really difficult but from time to time a little bit to fast. The Praat - software is wuite interesting and for a change practical work.



5. References

http://www.phonak.com/consumer/hearing/howwehear/function.htm
http://wwwhomes.uni-bielefeld.de/~gibbon/Classes/Classes2007WS/ITL/index.html