Cinéradiographic Studies of Speech: Procedures and Objectives

Abstract

Simultaneous sound recordings and cinéradiographic films showing lateral views of the speech mechanism have been obtained for a variety of utterances generated by several speakers. Procedures are described for making frame-by-frame tracings from the films and for obtaining from these tracings quantitative data on the movements of the various speech-generating structures. Interpretation of these data is discussed in terms of several objectives: (1) obtaining further understanding of the relations between the positions of the articulatory structures, vocal-tract configurations, and acoustic outputs; (2) examining the dynamic properties of the various components of the articulatory mechanism and the interrelations among the movements of these components; and (3) gaining an understanding of the transformation from a discrete linguistic description of speech to the continuous motions of the articulatory structures. Attention in this paper is centered on the second of these objectives, and, in particular, data on the relative movements of various parts of the tongue and of the structures in the vicinity of the larynx for several vowel-consonant and consonant vowel combinations are presented and discussed. A short film is shown to illustrate certain features of the data.