Chapter 3 - Speech Production and Speech Acoustics

Abstract

This chapter reviews the basics of speech production, speech signal, speech measurements, and speech acoustics. The discussion of speech production derives from the view of alcohol as a CNS depressant with its most critical effect on speech being a degradation of peripheral speech motor control. It discusses the anatomy and physiology of the vocal tract as well as articulatory phonetics. The section on speech acoustics considers speech as an acoustic signal that can be described by a well-defined sound source. Discussed here is the source-filter theory of speech production as well as modern instrumental acoustic techniques for the analysis of speech. This also includes waveform displays, filtering techniques, and spectral analysis. The chapter is divided into three sections. First, it presents a discussion of the anatomical, physiological, and neurological bases of speech production. This section includes description of the sound segments that serve as analytical units for much of speech science. The second section describes some of the instrumental techniques used in modern research on the analysis of acoustic signals, particularly speech. Finally, the chapter concludes the discussion by examining various linguistic and phonetic variables that can serve as analysis targets.