ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we will introduce you to the organs of speech and to the concept of place of articulation of consonants. (We recommend you to work through this chapter with a small mirror beside you to check the correspondence between the description of sounds and what you can see.)
The ORGANS OF SPEECH are all parts of the body that serve other primary biological purposes: breathing, biting, chewing, licking, swallowing, etc. You can see from this that we are referring especially to the lungs and to parts of the body in what we call in everyday English the mouth and throat. Except to note that they are the main ‘reservoir’ of air used in speech production, the lungs need not concern us further here. The mouth and throat, known as the supra-glottal VOCAL TRACT, are where we need to focus.
