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What Is Speech?

  • Speech is a PHYSICAL process: a voluntary, neuromuscular behavior that allows humans to express language.
  • A breath of air emerges into the atmosphere as speech sounds that form words, phrases, and sentences.
  • Four systems and their main anatomical structures:
    • Respiration (breathing) – trachea, lungs
    • Phonation (voicing) – vocal cords housed in the larynx
    • Articulation (movement of the structures in the oral cavity) – lips, teeth, jaw, tongue, soft palate, hard palate
    • Resonance (sound in a cavity; contributes unique voice quality) – oral cavity and nasal cavity

What Is Speech? (continued)

  • In the absence of severe vocal or hearing impairment, speech is typically our primary and first language modality.
  • Language does not depend on speech:
    • People express and understand language using various other methods (e.g., writing, sign language, braille, lip-reading, Tadoma).
  • Speech does depend on language:
    • Otherwise, it would be a bunch of meaningless noises.
    • Language provides meaning to these sounds.

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

  • IPA is a symbol system used for documenting the speech sounds of language.
  • Each consonant or vowel symbol represents a single speech sound.
  • Created for adoption by languages worldwide by the International Phonetic Association.
  • Symbols are consistent from language to language.

Phonetics: A “Sound” Science

  • Phonetics is the study of the production and perception of speech sounds.
  • What is important for you to understand in this course?
    • How to document the speech sounds of American English using the IPA
    • Physiological phonetics
    • Clinical phonetics

Why do we need to understand phonetics?

  • Important for assessing and treating individuals with speech disorders and differences.
  • SLP1: Child with unrepaired cleft palate; working on /p/ /b/ /f/ /s/ for months with limited progress.
    • Takeaway: essential to know how speech sounds are physically produced.

Why do we need to understand phonetics? (More classroom examples)

  • SLP2: 4-year-old boy working on the “s” sound at the end of words. In a rush, the clinician typed words into a picture database: bus, grass, eyes, nose, keys.
    • What’s wrong here? The issue highlights that sound targets in therapy do not always align with how words are spelled.
  • SLP3: 8-year-old girl working on the “sh” sound. The SLP used a list of written words (because the child could read): fishing, ocean, mission, lotion.
    • What could be a problem here? The correspondence between sounds and spellings is not one-to-one; clinicians must account for this when selecting therapy materials.

Why is the IPA useful for clinical practice?

  • SLP4: Needs to evaluate the speech of an older child who just moved to the US from Egypt; Arabic is L1, English is L2. There is no “p” sound in Arabic. When speaking English, the child says words like “bizza” (pizza) and “Bepsi” (Pepsi).
    • Takeaway: IPA uses the symbols of the speech sounds of a variety of languages; it helps document L2 sounds the child is replacing with L1 sounds.
  • SLP5: Needs to evaluate the speech of a child who has very good language skills but is highly unintelligible. Most of her words are unclear.
    • Takeaway: The IPA provides a one-to-one representation of spoken speech. The actual sounds produced can be documented, and omissions or distortions can be shown.

Examples and practice with orthography/transliteration

  • Slides illustrate target vs. error after 4 months of speech therapy, comparing orthography (spelling) and transliteration (phonetic representation).
  • Example slide prompts reversed examples such as
    • target, error, after 4 months of speech therapy, with lines showing how spelling does not always map to pronunciation.

Why is the IPA useful for clinical practice? (Progress tracking)

  • Transcription of speech sounds using IPA is:
    • efficient
    • informative
    • allows SLPs to easily monitor clients’ progress over time.
  • Example: Put your shoes in the right place.
    • Regular writing (with lisps): Puch ya shoes, in the righ pwace (lisps).
    • Transcribed in IPA: a precise representation of the actual phonemes produced (illustrative transcription would show the underlying speech sounds rather than the spelling).

IPA – Fun and Challenging!

  • Studying IPA can be like “learning a new language.”
  • There are variations on how one can transcribe the same productions.
  • Different transcribers use their own rules for transcribing.
  • In this class, you are responsible for learning Professor Cogburn’s transcription conventions.
  • No YouTube, online transcription sites, notes from other courses, using any outside resources, etc.
    • *considered cheating

Typing IPA Symbols: Where can I find them?

  • http://ipa.typeit.org/full/
    • Select the IPA symbols, copy & paste.
  • In Microsoft Word:
    • Change font to Cambria or Times New Roman
    • Insert → Symbol → scroll for the IPA symbol, select, then insert.
  • Mac Users:
    • See posted instructions on how to access the entire keyboard.
  • Beware! Pay attention to the IPA symbol you are actually typing!