This document discusses the parts of the ear and the process of hearing. It describes the three parts of the ear - the outer, middle, and inner ear. The outer ear includes the auricle and ear canal. The middle ear contains the eardrum, middle ear cavity, and three auditory ossicles. The inner ear includes the cochlea, which is divided into three scalae and contains the organ of Corti. Sound waves travel through the outer and middle ear, causing vibrations that are transmitted through the ossicles to the inner ear. The organ of Corti converts these vibrations into neural signals that are sent to the brain for interpretation and perception of sound.

1. THE EAR AND ITS
PARTS
Marwa Firas
2013

2.  auditory phonetics
 Speaker-Listener Interrelation
 Brain, Speech and Hearing
 Speech Reception
 Peripheral Auditory System / The Hearing
Organs
 The Process of Hearing

3. AUDITORY PHONETICS
 Carr (2008:17) defines auditory phonetics as
the branch of phonetics which deals with the
way that the human ear and perceptual system
receive and process speech sounds.
 Crystal (2003:42) defines auditory phonetics as
the branch of phonetics which studies the
perceptual response to speech sounds, as
mediated by ear, auditory nerve and brain

4. PERCEPTION
 Trask (1996:260) clarifies the notion of
Perception as “ the process by which an
individual detects and interprets information
from the external world by means of the organs
of sense, the nervous system and the brain.

5. SPEAKER-LISTENER INTERRELATION

6.  Listeners need to be able to understand the meaning with
the least possible effort on their part.
 sounds that affect the meaning of a word should be
sufficiently distinct from one another.
 pressure to make changes that would result in easier
articulations from a speaker’s point of view.
 there should be sufficient perceptual contrast between
sounds that affect the meaning of an utterance from the
listener’s point of view .

7. BRAIN, SPEECH AND HEARING
 The process of speech and hearing is translated
to the brain by means of codes via the hearing
system that help gather up the sounds,
transmitting them as neural impulses to be
interpreted in the brain.

8. SPEECH RECEPTION
 it is done via the ear (outer, middle, inner) as the air
pressure pushes its parts.
 it interprets neural impulses as hearing sensation.

9. PERIPHERAL AUDITORY SYSTEM / THE HEARING
ORGANS
THE OUTER EAR
 Auricle or the Pinna (the visible part of the ear).
 Ear Canal.

10. THE MIDDLE EAR
A. Eardrum.
B. Middle ear cavity.
C. Auditory Ossicles /ɒsIkəl/
(Mallet, Anvil, Stirrup).
A. Eustachian Tube.

11. THE INNER EAR
 Semicircular ducts.
 Cochlea.

12. COCHLEA
A snail-like shape which is divided into regions along its length by the
cochlear partition
1. Scala Media
2. Scala Tympani and Scala Vestibuli which are separated by the Basilar
and Reissner’s Membrane from scala media by respectively
3. Helicotrema
4. Oval Window
5. Round Window
6. Organ of Corti

14. THE PROCESS OF HEARING
 Pinna  auditory canal  tympanic membrane 
hammer anvil  stirrup  oval window  Perilymph 
organ of Corti  auditory canal brain (Macmillan, 2013)

15. REFERENCES
 --------. (2013). Macmillian
 Ainsworth, A. And Steven Greenberg. (2004). “Speech Processing in the Auditory
System: An Overview” in Springer Handbook of Auditory Research. Ed. Richard R.
Fay and Arthur N. Popper. New York: Springer-Verlag New York, Inc
 Carr, Philip. (2013). English Phonetics and Phonology. Sussex: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
 Crytal, D. (2003). A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
 Johnson, Keith. (2003). Acoustic and Auditory Phonetics. London: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
 Ladefoged, Peter. (2011). A Course in Phonetics. Canada: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
 Trask, R. L. (2005). Dictionary of Phonetics and Phonology. London: Taylor & Francis
Routledge.