Phonetics: Voiced and Voiceless

• Larynx


  Gives "vitality" to speech
• Voiced sounds


  Vibrations felt in the larynx
• Voiceless sounds


  No vibrations felt in the larynx
• Phonetic transcription

  signify how a word is pronounced, not how it is spelled.
• The ng sound is represented phonetically by a special symbol [ŋ]
• Voiced sounds are more numerous in English than voiceless sounds
• Only about ten sounds used in English are voiceless
• The brain controls the larynx with remarkable speed and accuracy, putting the larynx back and forth from the voiced to voiceless configuration, often within ten milliseconds or less
• Voiced sounds in English


  • [v]
  • [b]
  • [d]
  • [g]
  • [z]
• Voiceless sounds in English


  • [f]
  • [h]
  • [p]
  • [t]
  • [k]
  • [s]
• [z] and [s] are produced in the same way and at the same location in the mouth, the only difference being that [z] is voiced and [s] is not
• When the vocal folds are apart and the airstream flows smoothly through, voiceless sounds are produced
• When vocal folds are together, a narrow pathway is created for the air to flow through, setting the folds into oscillation or vibration. Resultant sounds are called voiced sounds
• A consonant is produced when the pulses from the larynx, either voiced or voiceless, are impeded by a part of the vocal tract.
• Vowels are sounds that are produced with no closure or obstruction of the airstream.