Speech Production and Articulation
This topic concerns the stages that turn a selected word's phonological form into the coordinated motor commands that produce audible speech.
Definition
The processes by which abstract phonological representations are converted into the motor commands and movements that generate speech.
Scope
It covers phonological encoding (the assembly of segments into syllables and prosodic structure), phonetic and articulatory planning, and the motor control of the vocal tract, together with models that link these stages. It describes the planning and motor processes rather than offering speech-therapy guidance.
Core questions
- How is a word's phonological form assembled and syllabified before articulation?
- How are abstract speech plans translated into articulatory movements?
- How do feedback and feedforward control coordinate fluent articulation?
Key concepts
- phonological encoding
- syllabification
- the mental syllabary
- articulatory gestures
- feedback control
Key theories
- Phonological encoding in WEAVER++
- Levelt and colleagues' account in which retrieved word forms are incrementally syllabified and combined with stored syllabic motor programs before articulation.
- DIVA model of speech motor control
- Guenther's neurocomputational model in which speech is produced through interacting feedforward commands and auditory and somatosensory feedback control of the vocal tract.
History
Levelt's 1989 model and its 1999 formalization set out the encoding stages of production, while neurocomputational models such as DIVA from the 2000s connected articulatory planning to motor-control neuroscience.
Debates
- Role of feedback in fluent speech
- How far articulation relies on pre-planned feedforward commands versus on-line auditory and somatosensory feedback to maintain accuracy.
Key figures
- Willem Levelt
- Ardi Roelofs
- Frank Guenther
Related topics
Seminal works
- levelt1989
- leveltroelofsmeyer1999
- guenther2006
Frequently asked questions
- What is the mental syllabary?
- It is a proposed store of pre-compiled motor programs for frequently used syllables, which speakers retrieve rather than computing articulation from scratch each time.