Chapter 2: Articulatory, Auditory and Acoustic Phonetics.

Phonology
2.1. Phonetics and phonology
2.2. Articulatory phonetics
2.3. Auditory phonetics
2.4. Acoustic phonetics
2.5. Synchronic, diachronic, comparative phonology
2.6. Varieties of English. The international spread of English. Regional
variation. Accents. Standard English and Received Pronunciation.
2.7. Sound Change. The gap between spelling and pronunciation. The
International Phonetic Alphabet. Homonyms, homo-phones,
homographs.

CHAPTE
2.3. Auditory phonetics

If articulatory phonetics studies the way in which speech sounds are produced,
auditory phonetics focuses on the perception of sounds or the way in which sounds are
heard and interpreted. Remembering our conventional division of linguistic
communication into several stages of a process unfolding between two parties, the sender
of the message and its addressee, we may say that while articulatory phonetics is mainly
concerned with the speaker, auditory phonetics deals with the other important participant
in verbal communication, the listener. It is again, obviously, a field of linguistic study
which has to rely heavily on biology and more specifically on anatomy and physiology.
We should say from the very beginning, however, that the mechanism and physiology of
sound perception is a much hazier field that the corresponding processes related to the
uttering of the respective sounds. This is so because speech production is a process that
takes place roughly along the respiratory tract which is, comparatively, much easier to
observe and study than the brain where most processes linked to speech perception and
analysis occur. Our presentation so far has already revealed a fundamental characteristic
of acoustic phonetics which essentially differentiates it from both articulatory and
acoustic phonetics: its lack of unity. We are in fact dealing with two distinct operations
which, however, are closely interrelated and influence each other: on the one hand we can
talk about audition proper, that is the perception of sounds by our auditory apparatus and
the transforming of the information into a neural sign and its sending to the brain and, on
the other hand, we can talk about the analysis of this information by the brain which
eventually leads to the decoding of the message, the understanding of the verbal
message.5 When discussing the auditory system we can consequently talk about its
peripheral and its central part, respectively. We shall have a closer look at both these

5
It is obvious, even at an intuitive level, that hearing someone’s words and understsnding them are two
quite different processes. They are chronologically distinct, since we can talk about two successive stages, and
they also differ in nature since they involve different operations of the brain. We should not make the mistake,
however, of separating them completely since, as we are going to see below, our understanding of what we hear
essentially influences the process of hearing itself.
processes and try to show why they are both clearly distinct and at the same time they are
closely related.
Before the sounds we perceive are processed and interpreted by the brain, the first
anatomical organ they encounter is the ear. The ear has a complex structure and its basic
auditory6 functions include the perception of auditory stimuli, their analysis and their
transmission further on to the brain. We can identify three components: the outer, the
middle and the inner year. The outer ear is mainly represented by the auricle or the pinna
and the auditory meatus or the outer ear canal. The auricle is the only visible part of the
ear, constituting its outermost part, the segment of the organ projecting outside the skull.
It does not play an essential role in audition, which is proved by the fact that the
removing of the pinna does not substantially damage our auditory capacity. The auricle
rather plays a protective role for the rest of the ear and it also helps us localize sounds.
The meatus, or the outer ear canal is a tubular structure playing a double role: it, too,
protects the next segments of the ear – particularly the middle ear – and it also functions
as a resonator for the sound waves that enter our auditory system. The middle ear is a
cavity within the skull including a number of little anatomical structures that have an
important role in audition. One of them is the eardrum. This is a diaphragm or membrane
to which sound waves are directed from outside and which vibrates, acting as both a filter
and a transmitter of the incoming sounds. The middle ear also contains a few tiny bones:
the mallet, the anvil and the stirrup. The pressure of the air entering our auditory system
is converted by the vibration of the membrane (the eardrum) and the elaborate movement
of the little bones that act as some sort of lever system into mechanical movement which
is further conveyed to the oval window, a structure placed at the interface of the middle
and inner ear. As pointed out above, the middle ear plays an important protection role.
The muscles associated with the three little bones mentioned above contract in a reflex
movement when sounds having a too high intensity reach the ear. Thus the impact of the
too loud sounds is reduced and the mechanism diminishes the force with which the
movement is transmitted to the structures of the inner ear. It is in the middle ear too, that
a narrow duct or tube opens. Known as the Eustachian tube it connects the middle ear to
the pharynx. Its main role is to act as an outlet permitting the air to circulate between the
pharynx and the ear, thus helping preserve the required amount of air pressure inside the
middle ear. The next segment is the inner ear, the main element of which is the cochlea, a
cavity filled with liquid. The inner ear also includes the vestibule of the ear and the
semicircular canals. The vestibule represents the central part of the labyrinth of the ear
and it gives access to the cochlea. The cochlea is a coil-like organ, looking like the shell
of a snail. At each of the two ends of the cochlea there is an oval window, while the
organ itself contains a liquid. Inside the cochlea there are two membranes: the vestibular
membrane and the basilar membrane. It is the latter that plays a central role in the act of
audition. Also essential in the process of hearing is the so-called organ of Corti, inside the

6
We should not forget that the ear (more exactly the inner ear) also plays an essential part in our
body’s capacity of keeping its balance. As this function of the ear obviously lies outside the scope of this
book we are not going to discuss it.
cochlea, a structure that is the real auditory receptor. Simplifying a lot, we can describe
the physiology of audition inside the inner ear as follows: the mechanical movement of
the little bony structures of the middle ear (the mallet, the anvil and the stirrup) is
transmitted through the oval window to the liquid inside the
snail-like structure of the cochlea; this causes the basilar membrane to vibrate: the
membrane is stiffer at one end than at the other, which makes it vibrate differently,
depending on the pitch of the sounds that are received. Thus, low-frequency (grave)
sounds will make vibrate the membrane at the less stiff (upper) end, while high-
frequency (acute) sounds will cause the lower and stiffer end of the membrane to vibrate.
The cells of the organ of Corti, a highly sensitive structure because it includes many
ciliate cells that detect the slightest vibrating movement, convert these vibrations into
neural signals that are transmitted via the auditory nerves to the central receptor and
controller of the entire process, the brain.
The way in which the human brain processes auditory information and, in general,
the mental processes linked to speech perception and production are still largely
unknown. What is clear, however, regarding the perception of sounds by man’s auditory
system, is that the human ear can only hear sounds having certain amplitudes and
frequencies. If the amplitudes and frequencies of the respective sound waves are lower
than the range perceptible by the ear, they are simply not heard. If, on the contrary, they
are higher, the sensation they give is one of pain, the pressure exerted on the eardrums
being too great. These aspects are going to be discussed below when the physical
properties of sounds are analyzed. As to the psychological processes involved by the
interpretation of the sounds we hear, our knowledge is even more limited. It is obvious
that hearing proper goes hand in hand with the understanding of the sounds we perceive
in the sense of organizing them according to patterns already existing in our mind and
distributing them into the famous acoustic images that Saussure spoke of. It is at this
level that audition proper intermingles with psychological processes because our brain
decodes, interprets, classifies and arranges the respective sounds according to the
linguistic (phonological) patterns already existing in our mind.7 It is intuitively obvious
that if we listen to someone speaking an unknown language it will be very difficult for us
not only to understand what they say (this is out of the question given the premise we
started from) but we will have great, often insurmountable difficulties in identifying the
actual sounds the person produced. The immediate, reflex reaction of our brain will be to
assimilate the respective sounds to the ones whose mental images already exists in our
brain, according to a very common cognitive reaction of humans that always have the

7
Listening comprehension is, after all, an essential part of our mastering a certain language. In
order to actually understand what someone says in a given language we need to be accustomed to the
phonological structure of the respectuive language. This will enable us to correctly interpret – acoustically
speaking – even phonological structures whose meaning is unknown to us. Conversely, when someone
mispronounces a word we know – say, in our own mother tongue – our mind will automatically correct the
mistake and we will be able to understand the word the speaker meant to utter in spite of its actual faulty
pronunciation (see, also, note 5 above).
tendency to relate, compare and contrast new information to already known information.
Our discussion of the phoneme in a subsequent chapter will analyze this in further detail.