The Foundation of Speaking

Speech making is simply the art of producing sounds through the oral cavity, the mouth. The mouth contains organs of speech such as the teeth, the lips, the tongue, the alveolar ridge, the hard palate and soft palate, as well as the velum. Not only the mouth, other major organs of speech are housed within the nasal cavity and pharyngeal cavity. The nostrils (nasal cavity) and the lungs, vocal cords (voice box) and the glottis, are also organs of speech production. All these organs, put together, coinstitute the articulatory organs.

Organs of speech production
The organs of speech producttion are organs within the three cavities: pharyngeal cavity, oral cavity and nasal cavity These organs are discussed below:

pharyngeal cavity
Considering the mechanism of speech production, also regarded as speech mechanisms, the pharyngeal cavity houses the first set of organs used for speech production, which are the vocal cords and glottis. The vocal cords is the first thing the air from the lungs touches.

oral cavity
The oral cavity houses organs which are important organs of speech production. The tongue is important because its parts; the tip/top and back, either raised or lowered are aids to speech sound production. the teeth and lips are equally important organs of speech sound production. These two organs sometime work independently or dependently depending on the sound to be produced. When the teeth (upper and lower jaw) are used, interdental sounds are produced; /θ/ and /ð/. The two lips merge to produce the bilabial sounds; /m/, /b/ and /p/. The teeth, if used with the lips, produces the labio-dental sounds; /f/, /v/ and /w/.

Speaking as process and product
The production of sounds as expression of the human thoughts, emotions and ideas is evident at every stage of the human life. From birth, the first effort to speaking is through noise making in form of a cry, which involves the production of sound by the new born. This usually signifies life.

Subsequently, the child develops to cooing, then babbling, after which the child produces mono-syllabi, such as '-ter', an extract from the word, 'wa-ter'. Either way, the child is producing some sounds, even though the child is unconscious of the linguistic rule, which indicates a combination of sounds (Consonant /t/) and (vowel /a:/ sounds). At this stage also, the child is not conversant of the appropriateness of the sound produced. For examples, the misuse of the long sound /a:/ instead of the shwa.

The child's language continues to develop until sentences are constructed based on the dictates of the child's interlanguage (linguistic manifastation of the child based on the knowledge of both L1 (possibly the mother tongue or the language of the immediate environment) and SL (second language). At this stage in the child's development, the child is able to make varying sounds in a rhythmic manner, hence the childs production of meaningful structures with which the child communicates with co-interlocutors.

When we speak using the organs highlighted above,what could be perceived are series of meaningful sounds, either as expression of joy (laughter), sadness (cry), declaration, inquiry or command (utterance) or surprise (exclamation), etc.