The Importance Of Speech Organs

The objective of the module is to acquaint the learner with speech organs and their mechanism.
This branch of phonetics concerns with the speech producing mechanism and the ‘apparatus’ in human beings and explains how the outgoing airstream is regulated along the vocal tract to form various speech sounds. All speech organs are known as articulators. These organs of speech also serve other biological needs. The airstream that goes in and out of the lungs forms the basis of speech; that is, speech is based on the outgoing airstream. The organs used for speech include the lips, teeth, alveolar ridge, hard palate, velum, uvula, glottis and the tongue. Glottis is not an active articulator because it is only a space between vocal folds
Speech organs are broadly classified into active or mobile articulators and passive or fixed articulators.
The active or mobile articulators are moveable articulators;
 Lower lip
 Tip of the tongue
 Blade of the tongue
 Front of the tongue
 Back of the tongue
 Root of the tongue
 Vocal folds.
The fixed or passive articulators are
 the upper lip
 the teeth
 the alveolar ridge
 the hard palate
 the velum
 the pharynx
The passive articulator remains stationary during articulation.
Consonant sounds are produced when there is an obstruction of the airflow somewhere in the vocal tract. The obstruction is the point of contact between an active articulator and a passive articulator.
Articulation means shaping the raw sound into a