Our Speech Organs at Work

While reading the section on Specialization for Language, I became very interested in the speech organs chart and it reminded me of a teacher I used to have in middle school.  Lets just say her name was Mrs. Teacher and she always liked having a quiet and organized classroom.  One day during a class activity, she told all her students that we were talking too loud and that we should try whispering instead.  After a few minutes of that, Mrs. Teacher was still dissatisfied with the noise level and asked us if anyone has ever told us how to whisper properly.  At this point, everyone was very confused and a little frightened, but Mrs. Teacher taught me something I'll never forget.

She told each of her students to rest their index finger and thumb on each side of their nose, near the bridge, where one's glasses would sit, and to talk.  When we did what she asked of us she said "Did you guys feel that?".  She was talking about the small vibrations we felt every time we said something.  Mrs. Teacher told us that when you whisper properly you shouldn't feel any vibrations coming from your nose, and if we did that meant
we were talking too loud.

Even though Mrs. Teacher was a little overbearing, she taught me an important idea, the concept that our bodies play an integral role in speech and that the creation of sounds and language is not just something random, but instead part of a biological process within ourselves.