Vocal tract physiology and its MRI evaluation

Introduction. The rapid technological evolution in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) has recently offered a great opportunity for the analysis of voice production. Objectives. This article is aimed to describe main physiological principles at the base of voice production (in particular of vocal tract), and an overview about literature on MRI of the vocal tract. This is presented in order to analyze both present results and future perspectives. Method. A narrative review was performed by searching the MeSH terms “vocal tract” and “MRI” in PubMed database. Then, the obtained studies were subsequently selected by relevancy. Results. Main fields described in literature concern technical feasibility and optimization of MRI sequences, modifications of vocal tract in vowel or articulatory phonetics, modifications of vocal tract in singing, 3D reproduction of vocal tract and segmentation, and describing vocal tract in pathological conditions. Conclusions. MRI is potentially the best method to study the vocal tract physiology during voice production. Most recent studies have achieved good results in representation of changes in the vocal tract during emission of vowels and singing. Further developments in MR technique are necessary to allow an equally detailed study of faster movements that participate in the articulation of speaking, which will allow fascinating perspectives in clinical use.

J. G. Tromlitz’s Articulatory Phonetics in Flute Sound Formation

"The paper considers articulatory phonetics and specific features of its use in flute performance. The historical stages presented of phonemic bases formation and development for flute articulation during the 16-18 centuries. Flute treatises by S. Ganassi, J.-M. Hotteterre, A. Mahaut, Ch. DeLusse, J. J. Quantz are considered in chronological order, as well as analysis of “Auführlicher und gründlicher Unterricht die Flöte zu spielen” by J. G. Tromlitz. Technological aspects are disclosed of using various phonemic structures outside the speech process to develop tongue motility and generate various types of tonguing while playing the flute. The role is identified of і and а vowels in modelling instrument phonation mechanism and their influence on sound tone and volume. The main elements are highlighted of speech and vocal types for flute articulation, as well as their differences. The vocalization significance is analysed in relation to tone development and the instrument sound uniformity in the lower and upper registers. The significance is disclosed of J. G. Tromlitz’s contribution to the flute articulation development and his innovative vocalization approaches to phonation technique. Keywords: flute, articulation, phonetics, phonemic structures, vocalization, sound production, embouchure. "

The Source–Filter Theory of Speech

In the source-filter theory, the mechanism of speech production is described as a two-stage process: (a) The air flow coming from the lungs induces tissue vibrations of the vocal folds (i.e., two small muscular folds located in the larynx) and generates the “source” sound. Turbulent airflows are also created at the glottis or at the vocal tract to generate noisy sound sources. (b) Spectral structures of these source sounds are shaped by the vocal tract “filter.” Through the filtering process, frequency components corresponding to the vocal tract resonances are amplified, while the other frequency components are diminished. The source sound mainly characterizes the vocal pitch (i.e., fundamental frequency), while the filter forms the timbre. The source-filter theory provides a very accurate description of normal speech production and has been applied successfully to speech analysis, synthesis, and processing. Separate control of the source (phonation) and the filter (articulation) is advantageous for acoustic communications, especially for human language, which requires expression of various phonemes realized by a flexible maneuver of the vocal tract configuration. Based on this idea, the articulatory phonetics focuses on the positions of the vocal organs to describe the produced speech sounds. The source-filter theory elucidates the mechanism of “resonance tuning,” that is, a specialized way of singing. To increase efficiency of the vocalization, soprano singers adjust the vocal tract filter to tune one of the resonances to the vocal pitch. Consequently, the main source sound is strongly amplified to produce a loud voice, which is well perceived in a large concert hall over the orchestra. It should be noted that the source–filter theory is based upon the assumption that the source and the filter are independent from each other. Under certain conditions, the source and the filter interact with each other. The source sound is influenced by the vocal tract geometry and by the acoustic feedback from the vocal tract. Such source–filter interaction induces various voice instabilities, for example, sudden pitch jump, subharmonics, resonance, quenching, and chaos.

Mitigating negative transference in foreign language articulatory phonetics: Revisiting explicit instruction

The development of oral communication competence is acknowledged as generally overlooked or misunderstood in the literature. The aim of this article is to discuss results from an investigation into the use of explicit instruction as a pedagogical approach to mitigate pronunciation interference among third-year university students learning Spanish as a second-language. Two groups were formed: an experimental group, which received explicit phonetic instruction, and a second group, which served as the control group. Three raters independently evaluated phonetic accuracy in pretest and post-test sessions. Results suggest that pronunciation instruction leads to statistically significant improvement with regard to syllabification, prosodic stress, natural reading speed, intonation patterns, and the pronunciation of rhotic, voiced stop, approximant, and fricative consonants. Results also indicate that the assessment tools developed in this study are appropriate for measuring the overall enhancement of Spanish pronunciation accuracy, and could therefore be used in the foreign language classroom.

An Analysis of Jonathan Harvey’s Speakings for Orchestra and Electronics

In recent years an increasing number of composers have used speech as source material for instrumental, electronic and electroacoustic music. This article examines this particular intersection of music and language through an analysis of Jonathan Harvey’s Speakings for orchestra and electronics. I attempt to understand how Harvey made an orchestra sound like a human voice by analyzing his use of technology and his compositional techniques, particularly as they relate to existing theories of speech perception, acoustics and articulatory phonetics. This technical achievement is then placed in its broader musical context to examine the role that speech-sounds play in this piece, and the implications of hearing an orchestra speak in the context of this work’s narrative.

A Survey of the Mixed Use of He/She for Chinese Freshmen in English Majors

The mixed use of he/she in oral English is a hot topic in the field of second language acquisition in the past decades and the related study is numerous. However, there are few studies on the misuse of the two pronouns in oral English for English majors in Chinese universities. This study aims to explore the current situation and characteristics of he/she misuse in oral English of Chinese freshmen majoring in English and analyze the factors that cause the misuse, so as to arouse the learners’ awareness of the error. This study focuses on two research questions: (1) What are the characteristics of he/she misuse in spoken English of Chinese freshmen majoring in English? (2) What are the reasons for the misuse? Based on the selected spoken language materials, this study explores the mixing types and error rate of he/she and analyzes the characteristics of the misuse through data. Through the questionnaire, this thesis study investigates the causes of the misuse. It is found that the mixed use of pronoun he/she is serious in the spoken language of English major freshmen, especially the misuse of “she” into “he”. The factors that cause the misuse are complex, involving mother tongue, attention distribution and working memory, pronunciation relationship, transfer of training, and social environment and personal factors, among which the analysis from articulatory phonetics deserves more attention.

Lithuanian and French Sounds: Comparative Analysis of Articulatory Features

SummaryThe aim of this article is to analyze the differences between Lithuanian and French sounds and to provide a general outlook of the Lithuanian articulatory phonetics mainly intended for French speakers. Such a comparative analysis is relevant because (a) there is no consistent equivalent between written and spoken language, even in Lithuanian, which has a relatively young written language, (b) the international phonetic alphabet does not always accurately reflect differences in pronunciation, (c) the contrastive perspective helps learners to focus on differences that could be unnoticed. Besides the articulatory aspects, the orthographic issues where the spoken form cannot be directly deduced from the written form by a simple relation from grapheme to sound but depends on the graphemic context (mainly related to some assimilation processes) are given a special attention. The questions that remain controversial between Lithuanian phoneticians (such as the retroflex status of the phonetic counterparts of <š> and <ž>) are also mentioned. The comparative analysis shows that the two systems exhibit significant differences: most sounds are not shared. Nevertheless, differences are often slight, so that it is more an issue of orthoepics. Attention should be paid to the differences in the duration and qualitative characteristics of long and short vowels and the relation of graphemes <a, e, o, i> to sounds. From the point of view of consonants, [], [r, rj], [x, ] are problematic, their pronunciation must be learned separately. The pronunciation of palatalized consonants as simple consonants, and not as clusters with [j] as the second element, is also challenging for French speakers.

ICONICITY ADAPTATION: AN ANALYSIS OF ONOMATOPOEIAS IN FINANCE SMURFS COMIC AND ITS INDONESIAN TRANSLATION SMURF BENDAHARA

Onomatopoeia is one example of iconic signs influenced by the culture of the origin of the speakers. Translating an onomatopoeic word will need more than just a dictionary, but also culture and linguistic understanding of both source and target languages. Dealing with this issue, this research attempts to investigate how the onomatopoeias featured in the Finance Smurfs comic is translated into Indonesian. The data were obtained from Finance Smurfs comic and its translated version. Using articulatory phonetics to describe 47 onomatopoeias found in the comic, 43 are classified as iconic in both SL and TL, while 4 of them are not iconic. In addition, although the forms of onomatopoeias in source and target language are different their meanings are maintained based on the context.