Research methods in articulatory phonetics I: Introduction and studying oral gestures

This article is Part I of a general overview of current methods in articulatory phonetics research. This part deals with methods used to investigate oral gestures—speech‐related movements of the tongue, the lips, and the jaw (while Part II is concerned with methods studying laryngeal and nasal gestures, and the entire vocal tract). The focus of the article is on electropalatography, ultrasound, and electromagnetic articulography, with some attention also given to static palatography, X‐ray microbeam, and video recording. For comparison purposes, the methods are illustrated using similar articulatory data—productions of the plain‐palatalized contrast in Russian fricatives. Strengths and limitations of each method are discussed, and so are recent developments and trends.