Pronunciation and Phonology in the EFL Classroom - Manner of Articulation Pt. 1
When it comes to manner of articulation, we have six different ways in which our breath is produced in order to make our sounds. We have our plosives, our affricates, fricatives, the nasal sounds, our lateral sound and the approximants. Let's take a look at each individually and see how they differ from one another. First we have our plosive sounds. As the word might indicate we have basically a little explosion of sound with our breath. The plosive sounds are made through a three-step process. First there's a closure somewhere in the vocal tract. Second there's a buildup of air and finally there's a sudden release of that air like a little explosion. If we look at some of the sounds that are made this way we might better understand why they are called plosives. Examples are the ?p?, ?t?, ?k? and ?g? sounds. Again we have a closure in the vocal tract, a buildup of air and a sudden release ?p?, ?b?, ?k? and ?g?. Next we have our affricates. This manner of articulation is very very close to the plosives however there's one very important difference and that's in the last step. Again with the advocates we have a closure somewhere in the vocal tract, we have a buildup of air, however, with this manner of articulation we have a gradual release of air rather than the sudden release of air with the plosives. There are two examples of these sounds and they are ?tsh? and ?dsh?. Again there's a closure a buildup of air but yet this time it's a sudden release. Let's take a look at that one more time we have ?tsh? and ?dsh?.
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