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Speech Analysis Paper 375
Erika E. Escandon
Northern Arizona University
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Introduction:
In this paper, it will show psycholinguistic, physical and neurological that are all
involved in the speech production. In the course of Speech Language Hearing Science with Dr.
Culbertson, we went through four units. These units were: The Scientific Method and Research
Techniques, Acoustic Physics, Neurological Elements of Speech Production and Perceptions,
and Speech Physiological Process. In this paper I chose to use the multisyllabic with nasal
“Escandon”, this is my last name and it is transcribed as: /ɪˈskændən/.
SPEAKER
Psycholinguistic Level:
The four levels of expressive processing are: conception, formulation, expression and
monitoring. Conception is the sum of ideas in speech. Formulation is mixture of ideas combined
to prepare speech in a certain way. Expression is how one communicates their wants or needs.
Monitoring is how one listens or observes the language, such as interpreting the complex of the
language.
Cortical Centers for Symbolic Expression:
The central nervous system receives signals with hearing and effectors. The hypoglossal
Nerve is the one that moves the tongue. Whereas, the peripheral nervous system controls,
regulates, and moves cognitive and sensorimotor functions. The peripheral nervous system
controls the cranial and spinal nerves as it also connects it to the central nervous system and the
body. Cranial nerves are connected to the head, neck, spinal nerves, and trunk. The autonomic
nervous system changes the heart rate and is part of the nervous system, that is responsible to
control the bodies movement as well as: breathing, heartbeat, and digestive processes. There are
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two cerebral hemispheres, and their functions is to receive consciousness, coordinate, integrate,
understand and retrieve input. The left hemisphere is for controlling the right side of the body, it
helps perform tasks that logic such as: science and mathematics. The right hemisphere controls
the left side of the body and performs task with creativity and arts. The frontal lobe interferes
with behavior, learning, personality, and voluntary movement. The prefrontal cortex works for
memory, personality and emotion. The motor cortex is part of the cerebral cortex in the brain and
the nerve impulses to initiate voluntary muscular activity. The parietal lobe is for senses, touch,
physical, and movement. The occipital lobe is to be able to process visuals. The temporal lobe is
for smelling, feeling, perception, memory, and sexual behavior.
Physiological Level:
Darley, Aaronson, and Brown’s (1975) motor hierarchy levels are a classification system of
dysarthria’s. They’re classified as perceptual dimensions which include: pitch, loudness, voice
quality, respiration, prosody, and articulation. The motor hierarchy lever are: flaccid dysarthria,
spastic dysarthria, ataxic dysarthria, hypokinetic dysarthria, hyperkinetic dysarthria, and mixed
dysarthria. Flaccid dysarthria is located in the peripheral nervous system, the symptoms are
weakness, lack of normal muscle, and the characteristics are: hyper nasality, imprecise consonant
productions, breathiness of voice, and nasal emission (Dysarthria, 2018). Spastic dysarthria is
located in the pyramidal and the extrapyramidal system, the symptoms are muscular weakness,
greater than normal muscular tone, and the characteristics are: imprecise consonants, harsh voice
quality, hyper nasality and strained-strangled voice quality (Dysarthria, 2018). Ataxic dysarthria
is located in the cerebellum, the symptoms are inaccuracy of movement and slowness of
movement, and the characteristics are: imprecise consonants, irregular articulatory breakdowns,
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prolonged phonemes, prolonged intervals and slow rate (Dysarthria, 2018). Hypokinetic
dysarthria is located in the subcortical structure including basal ganglia, the symptoms are slow
movements, movements that are limited, and the characteristics are: within the articulatory
mechanism, which reduce the motion of the: Impaired lips, tongue, and jaw. It can range from
mildly imprecise to total unintelligibility (Dysarthria, 2018). Hyperkinetic dysarthria is located in
the subcortical structure including the basal ganglia, the symptoms are quick, unsustained, and
involuntary movements (Dysarthria, 2018). The Characteristics are: associated with Gilles de la
Tourette’s syndrome they’re associated with barking noises, end echolalia (Dysarthria, 2018)..
Mixed dysarthria is located in the upper and lower neuron system, the symptoms are weaknesses
and paralysis of all the muscles used for speech production. The characteristics are: slow rate,
slowness of phrase, imprecision of consonants, hyper nasality, and harshness (Dysarthria, 2018).
(-5.75 PTS: not the motor speech levels required)
Respiration:
The role of respiration in speech is to create power. The physiology of respiration for speech is to
Drive forces for sound generation, air flow is used for displacing structures which then creates
pressure behind the constrictions. Respiration varies pressures for loudness and pitch. Breathing
for speech is used for pauses and rhythms. When one is speaking, we use reserve inspiration and
tidal respiration. Normal breathing is relying on the expanding of the thorax, which contracts the
respiratory muscles. Inspiratory reserve is the amount of air or volume of gas one can inspiration
on the tidal inspiration. Tidal volume is the volume of air used in quiet breathing. During tidal
respiration, the inspiratory muscles let the thorax get into a belled shape for expiration. The
structures that support phonation for speech are: respiration and articulation. The phonatory
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mechanism that supports the production in Escandon is: the diaphragm, lungs, larynx, velum,
tongue, lips and lower jaw.
(-1.25 pts: how does it work?)
Neurological Support for Phonation (Afferent and Efferent Nerves)
For the nervous system structures that support phonation for speech, sounds are produced with
vocal folds. A normal phonatory source is a modal voicing, which is for singing and sounds that
are produced for through the vocal folds is phonatory.
(-1.5 pts: nervous system structures)
How does the phonatory mechanism support production of your word? “Escandon”
/ɪˈskændən/
/ɪ/, /æ/, /ə/ are all vowels:
/ɪ/ high, front, lax, unrounded
/æ/ low, front, lax, unrounded
/ə/ mid, central, lax, unrounded
/s/, /k/, /d/, /n/ are all consonants:
/s/ voiceless, fricative, alveolar
/k/ voiceless, stop, velar
/n/ voiced, nasal, alveolar
/d/ voice, stop, alveolar
Articulation: Functions of Speech Articulators in General:
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The speech articulators are the lips, teeth, alveolar ridge, hard palate, velum (soft palate), uvula,
glottis and tongue. They can be divided into two types: passive and active articulators. These
articulators make sound that is produced by exhaling air from the lungs and are released by the
lips, to produce sound. The vocal tract is a tube that is seventeen centimeters. The speech
functions are: airflow of consonant articulation, plosive and fricative sound sources, which then
route airflow through the oral or within the nasal cavities. During velar process, the tongue
elevates back and alveolar ridge the tip of the tongue is elevated up.
Neurological Support for Articulation (Afferent and Efferent Nerves).
(-1.5 pts: where are the neuro supports?)
Functions of Speech Articulators for Producing Specific Phonemes in Your Word
/ɪˈskændən/
Muscles for /ɪ/: orbicularis oris muscle, thyroarytenoid, lateral cricoarytenoid, and transverse and
oblique interarytenoid.
Muscles for /s/: Superior longitudinal, styloglossus, and patient controls the amount to open
glottis. Spectrum is higher than “sh”
Muscles for /k/: Styloglossus and levator veli palatini
Muscles for /æ/: zygomatic, levator velipalatine longitudinal inferior, superior constrictor
Genioglossus, and hyoglossus.
Muscles for /n/: Superior longitudinal, palatoglossal and levator palatini.
Muscles for /d/: Levator palatini, superior longitudinal, genioglossus and vertical intrinsic
muscle.
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Muscles for /ə/: Superior longitudinal muscles, inferior longitudinal muscles, vertical muscles,
and transverse muscles
My last name has three syllables.
Physical level:
/ɪˈskændən/
/ɪ/ has a vowel acoustic of 400 to 450 Hz. Spectrum of 2000 Hz.
/s/ is an unvoiced obstruent and has aperiodic vibration .The phoneme has a flat spectrum from
300 to 3000 Hz
/k/ aspirated, a short frication noise before vowel formants begin and it is usually in 30ms. Has a
silence period.
/æ/ the power spectrum has three major peaks of energy. The fourth one has less power than the
others.
/n/ the frequency of F1 is very low 200-450 Hz, F2 is not visible and the F3 is visible at 2500
Hz.
/d/ longer duration, frequency is usually below 200 Hz.
/ə/ has a vowel acoustic of 590 to 880 Hz. Spectrum of 1000 Hz.
The onset is the releaser /ɪ/ since it is the first syllable of Escandon there are three syllables in
Escandon which break it up in /ɪˈs/, /kæn/, /dən/. The most stressed phoneme is /ə/.
LISTENER
Physical Level:
External Ear: The peripheral hearing system starts at external ear, pinna (auricle),
concha, external auditory meatus, and external auditory canal. The pinna or auricle is the most
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noticeable part of the external ear mechanism, and is the only part of the ear that we can actually
see. The pinna is made of cartilage; the cartilage is covered with skin that is continuous with
face. The pinna itself has individually characteristic twists, turns, grooves, and although it varies
in size and shape from person to person, its landmark characteristics can be identified and
named. The deep center portion of the pinna is a bowl called the concha. The concha is
approximately 1-2 centimeters in diameter. Sounds are picked up by the pinna are travels
through the concha into the external auditory meatus. A sound wave is picked up by the pinna,
and transmitted down the external auditory canal to the next auditory structure, the tympanic
membrane. The external auditory meatus is the visible opening within the concha of the pinna.
This opening leads to the external auditory canal. The external auditory meatus can be divided
into two sections: the cartilaginous portion and the osseous portion. The primary roles for the
external ear is to protect and filters incoming sound.
Middle ear function:
Includes the tympanic membrane and the ossicles. The tympanic membrane is an air-filled cavity
lined with mucous membrane. It is separated from the outer ear by the tympanic membrane, and
from the inner ear by a bony wall called the promontory. It shows a vibratory pattern for
amplitude and frequency. If we did not have the middle ear function we would not be able to
receive any sound.
Cochlear Nerve:
It is mainly used for discriminatory hearing.
Central Auditory Pathways:
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The central auditory pathways are: auditory cortex, medial geniculate nucleus, inferior colliculus,
lateral lemniscus, cochlea, auditory nerve, superior olivary complex, ventral, cochlear nucleus,
and dorsal. These are all important for hearing and play a role to receive signals. The major
synaptic nuclei is to: receive synapses between neurons in the nervous system and it is processed
for early brain development.
Levels of Speech Processing:
The four levels of receptive speech and language processing are:
Attention and concentration: sustained effort, doing activities without distraction and being able
to hold that effort long enough to get the task done (Development Corporation, 2018).
Pre-language skills: the ways in which we communicate without using words and include things
such as gestures, facial expressions, imitation, joint attention and eye contact (Development
Corporation, 2018). Social skills: determined by the ability to engage in reciprocal interaction
with others to compromise with others and be able to recognize, and follow social norms
(Development Corporation, 2018). Play skills: voluntary engagement in self-motivated activities
that are normally associated with pleasure and enjoyment where the activities may be, but are not
necessarily, goal oriented (Development Corporation, 2018).
(-10pts: reception, perception, association, integration)
Cortical Centers for Speech Processing: The cerebral cortex is divided in four lobes which are:
frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital lobes. The primary functions of the frontal lobe are
motor and intellectual. The parietal lobe is connected with tactile reception and interpretation.
The occipital lobe is connected with reception and visual. The temporal lobe is for the central
auditory system.
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Dominant and Non-Dominant Hemisphere
The dominant hemisphere is the left half of the brain and is used for logical thought
containing motor areas for the right side of the body. The non-dominant hemisphere is for
speech and language.
(-1pt: dominance related to aspects of speech)
Summary
In conclusion, it is very important to understand the speech chain. I have come to
conclusion that using the speech chain is really how we communicate to one another and
that the speaker and listener have to connect in order to understand communication.
Phonation, articulation, psycholinguistic level, physical level, and physiological level are
an important factors of speech production.
79/100
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References
Culbertson, W.R. & Tanner, D.C. (2011). The anatomy and physiology of speech and
swallowing.
Development Corporation. (2018). Receptive Language (understanding words and language).
Retrieved from https://childdevelopment.com.au/areas-of-concern/understandinglanguage/receptive-language-understanding-words-and-language/
Dysarthria. (2018). Dysarthria. Retrieved from http://www.d.umn.edu/~mmizuko/2230/msd.htm
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