Articulatory Phonology: A Dynamical Approach to Phonological Representation
Dr Mohammed Zaheer Ab Khan
Associate Professor of English Language, College of Arts and Education, English Language Department, Ajdabiya University
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http://doi.org/10.37648/ijps.v20i01.020
Abstract
The Articulatory Phonology (AP) is a dynamic model of conceptualizing phonological representation in the importance of gestures, or coordinated motions of the vocal tract, in the construction of speech. AP is non-traditional with phonological units, in contrast to the traditional models which are based on non-continuous units or features, as being continuous, and gestural actions of a temporal organization, interacting with each other in a manner that is real-time during speech production. It combines the phonological theory with the biomechanical constraints, which put prominence on the articulators’ movement being correlated by the linguistic and physical constraints. An important feature of AP is attention to gestural timing, coordination and recoverability of speech patterns across languages which shows the variability of phonological units in response to efficiency, distinctiveness and robustness trade-offs. Coarticulation and reduction are also natural conclusions of the task-dynamic control and prosodic structure accommodated in the model. In addition, AP enables combining multimodal information in order to identify the fine-grained articulatory processes and draw links between phonological theory and overt speech behaviour. The model provides information on the topic of language acquisition, speech disorders, and second-language-learning by placing AP in wider cognitive and neuro-biomechanical contexts. This paper presents the way in which AP offers a unitary perspective of phonology which is both language and physiologically based and gives further direction in conducting research in phonological modelling and speech technology.
Keywords:
articulatory phonology; audio-visual corpora; gestural timing; coupling; task-dynamic simulators; cross-linguistic aspects
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