Organs of speech

Organs of speech
The various organs which are involved in the production of speech are called speech organs also known as vocal organs. Some of them are mobile, they move. They are called active. Some of them are fixed, they do not move. They are called passive. There are four cavities in our speech track. They are the oral cavity, or mouth cavity, the nasal cavity, the pharynx, and the larynx. They are empty spaces and they function as resonators. Everybody knows where our mouth cavity and nasal cavity is. The larynx is a stick that comes out in the fronts of our neck.it is more obvious in men than in women. The larynx is the place where our vocal cords are.
Articulators are the parts of mouth that are responsible for tuning sound into speech. They are subdivided into active and passive.
The passive (fixed) articulators are made of bone. They form part of the frame work of the mouth so you ca not move them or train them to do something different.
The active (mobile) articulators are muscles so they can move. It is these articulators that we need to retain to learn a different accent. Active speech organs are lips, tongue, soft palate, uvula, lower jaw, vocal cords, lungs. Passive speech organs are teeth, alveolar ridge, hard palate.
Introduction to sounds and letters
In writing, the words are made of letters. In speech, words are made of sounds. The alphabet which we use to write English has 26 letters but English has 44 sounds. Inevitably, English spelling is not a reliable guide to pronunciation because:

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  Some letters have more than one sound
  
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  Sometimes letters are not pronounced at all
  
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  The same sounds may be represented by different letters. For example, keep and club begin with the same sound, but the letters are different.
  

There are two kinds of sounds: consonant sounds and vowel sounds. The number of sounds in a word is not usually the same as the number of letters. For example, in zoo, there are two sounds, consonant-vowel, but there are three letters.

The system of English phonemes
There are total 44 sounds basic phonemic symbols. They are divided into vowel sounds and consonant sounds.
There are 20 vowel sounds in English phonemes. We can separate 20 vowel sounds another two sections. The first section is single vowel sounds or monophthongs. Another section is double vowel sounds and they are diphthongs. In a basically a combination of individual vowel sounds.
There are 24 consonant vowel sound in English. They are classified according to three different principles:

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  The place of articulation
  
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  Manner of articulation.
  

Vowels. Consonant sounds.
What are vowels?
Vowels are the sounds produced without obstraction of the air passage in the mouth but with the vibration of the vocal cords. So all vowels are voiced.
There are 20 vowels in English phonemes. Those 20 vowel sounds are classified as monophthongs, they are 12 and diphthongs, they are 8 in total.
What are consonants?
Consonants are the sounds produced with a complete or partial obstruction which prevents the air from going freely through the mouth. They are either voiced or voiceless.
Consonants are divided into two categories according to manner of articulation. They are unvoiced and voiced sounds.
Unvoiced means that we do not use vocal cords to produce those sounds. Example: p, t, k.
Voiced are the sounds that we use vocal cords to produce them. Example: b, d, g.
We also separate consonant sounds three groups according to place of articulation. They are plosive( 2affricates), fricates, and nasals.
Plosive ( 2 affricates) is a consonant sound that is made by completely stopping the flour of air out of your mouth and then suddenly letting it out. As when saying b, p.
Fricates as sound such f, z made by forcing your breathe through a narrow opening between your lips and teeth or your tongue.
Nasals are sounds produced with the velum lowered to allow air to escaping out the nose such as m, n.

Monophthongs. Diphthongs
We can separate vowel sounds two section: monophthongs, diphthongs.
Monophthongs are single vowel sounds like /i:/, /e/. They are totaly 12.
Diphthongs are double vowel sound or combination of two vowel sounds but they are classified as one phonemia such as /ei/, /ai/.
Monophthongs are organized into two groups: long vowel sounds such as /u:/ and short vowel sounds like /i/
But diphthongs are classified as long vowel sounds.