vocalization

Plural: vocalizations

Noun

• the sound made by the vibration of vocal folds modified by the resonance of the vocal tract
  • "the giraffe cannot make any vocalizations"
• the use of uttered sounds for auditory communication
• The act of vocalizing or something vocalized; a vocal utterance
• Any specific mode of utterance; pronunciation
• The use of speech to express an idea
• The production of communication sounds with the syrinx or larynx (in tetrapods) or with the swim bladder (in fish)
• The production of musical sounds using the voice, especially as an exercise
• The vowel diacritics in certain scripts, like Hebrew and Arabic, which are not normally written, but which are used in dictionaries, children's books, religious texts and textbooks for learners.
• The addition of these diacritics and the respective phonemes to a word; the spoken form the word thereby receives.
• The change in pronunciation of historically or variably consonant (typically sonorant) sounds as vowels. For example, the syllabic /l/ in words like people or the coda one in words like cold or coal are variably realized as a high back vowel or glide—[ʊ], [u], [ɤ] or [o]—in many dialects of English in the US, UK, and the Southern Hemisphere. For example, in African American Vernacular English, one common pronunciation of the words "people", "cold", and "coal" is [pʰipʊ], [kʰoɤd], or [kʰoɤ] respectively.

Synonyms

nikud, phonation, tashkil, utterance, vocalisation, vocalism, voice, vowelization, vox

Related Words

vocalize