Impact of biomechanical properties of tongue muscles on accuracy of English vowel pronunciation
Abstract
Pronunciation is a complex physiological process. Traditional research usually uses static pronunciation tests and fails to observe the dynamic changes of tongue muscles during pronunciation. This paper aims to comprehensively analyze the structure and function of tongue muscles and their role in English vowel pronunciation from the perspective of tongue muscle biomechanics, and provide a systematic framework for understanding. This paper designs multiple pronunciation tasks to evaluate participants’ pronunciation accuracy and dynamic changes of tongue muscles. Through multi-modal technology, dynamic images and electromyographic signals of the tongue are synchronously acquired to analyze the precise relationship between tongue movement and muscle activity in the pronunciation of English vowels. A tongue biomechanical model is constructed based on finite element analysis and Hill model to precisely simulate the mechanical response of tongue muscle activity and tongue position changes during pronunciation. The experimental results show that there is a significant negative correlation between electromyographic activity and pronunciation quality. The closer the correlation coefficient is to −1, the higher the consistency. The tongue is positioned higher and forward during pronunciation, making it easier to control, so that the pronunciation can be more accurate with less deviation. The greater the movement and flexibility of the tongue, the better it is able to form clear vowel pronunciations. In short, the tongue muscles achieve precise control of tongue position through the coordinated action of internal and external muscles during vowel pronunciation, which is beneficial to improving pronunciation accuracy.
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