Acoustics and Introduction to Praat

Abstract

This chapter provides a primer to the acoustic analysis and the visualization of speech. The understanding of the articulatory movements and actions covered in Chapter 3 is linked to the acoustic aspects of sources and filters in this chapter. The freeware Praat is introduced as the workhorse for many exploratory activities in speech analysis and visualization in the remainder of the book. Benus covers the basic physical processes of sound creation and propagation related to human speech and exemplifies sound wave characteristics such as their frequency or amplitude.