Manner of Articulation

In linguistics, manner of articulation describes how the tongue, lips, jaw, and other speech organs are involved in making a sound. Often the concept is only used for the production of consonants, even though the movement of the articulars will also greatly alter the resonant properties of the vocal tract, thereby changing the formant structure of speech sounds that is crucial for the identification of vowels.

There are different ways of producing a speech sound. With consonants the airstream may be ;

a- stopped and released suddenly
b-allowed to escape with friction
c-stopped and then released slowly with friction.

The vocal cords may be vibrating or not. With vowels , in addition to the position of the tongue in the mouth, the lips may be;

a- rounded

b-spread

To sum, by manner of articulation we mean the way in which the quality and volume of air is moduled as it is released through the air-passage to reproduce a particular sound.