SHS 170 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Vocal Folds, Pragmatics, Body Language
14 Oct 2016
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Document Summary
Language is one of the symbol systems that humans use to communicate. Language- a socially shared code or conventional system for representing concepts through use of arbitrary symbols and rule-governed combinations of those symbols. Distinction between a letter and a phoneme. Letter: arbitrary written or printed symbol/character representing speech sound. Phonemes: sounds of a language that cause changes in meaning are called phonemes. Shortest arbitrary units of sound in a language. English has 26 letters but 42-44 phonemes depending on the dialect. Letter c in city is phenome /s/ Letter c in cup is phenome /k/ Oral cavity, nasal cavity, pharyngeal cavity together constitute the vocal tract. Shape of the vocal tract is modified by the articulators. Vowels: produced by relatively open or unobstructed vocal tracts. Described by placement of tongue during production. Part of the tongue that is elevated (front, center, back) Consonants: produced with some degree of obstruction in the vocal tract.
