QUANTIFYING THE ARTICULATION MECHANISM OF THE MEDIAL PHONEME IN VIETNAMESE

Abstract

ABSTRACT Speech Therapy is a new profession in development in Vietnam. However, available assessment tools and treatment protocols contain phonology elements meant to assess English speakers. A better understanding of Vietnamese phonology would be greatly beneficial to the adaptation of these material for Vietnamese patients. On the other hand, the medial phoneme is a topic of debate between segmental and suprasegmental classification and available models of the phoneme contains elements not recognized by the International Phonetic Association which could cause confusion for Vietnamese speech therapists. Understanding the mechanism of the articulation of the medial phoneme would help Vietnamese health care professionals diagnose, assess, and manage patients better. 10 people participated in this research and audio-visual of 650 video snippets were analyzed, containing 13 minimal pairs of syllables with and without the medial phoneme. The results of the study confirm the hypothesis that the initial consonant is labialized and the vowel is lowered with the presence of the medial phoneme. Future research can explore employing participants of different or multiple dialects, participants of Speech Therapy patient population; or using different research tools such as videofluoroscopy for inner articulator investigation or praat for acoustics analysis.