Mouthcohesion

Mouthcohesion is a term used to describe the apparent unity and fluency of spoken language that results from coordinated movement of the oral articulators. In this sense, it refers to how the lips, tongue, jaw, and velum align across segments to create smooth transitions, reduce articulatory effort, and enhance listener-perceived fluency. The term is not widely standardized and appears mainly in informal discussions of speech production rather than as a formal theory.

Origins and scope. The word mouthcohesion blends mouth with cohesion and is used variably to emphasize continuity in articulation or, more broadly, to describe the relationship between articulatory gestures and perceptual coherence of utterances. Some researchers discuss related ideas under coarticulation, articulatory efficiency, and speech motor control, while others refer to cohesion in discourse rather than articulation. Because it is not a formal construct, its definition can differ across disciplines.

Measurement and research. Investigations would typically use articulatory tracking (such as ultrasound, electromagnetic articulography, or electropalatography) and acoustic analysis to quantify consistency of tongue–palate contact, lip rounding, jaw height, and timing across phoneme sequences. Measures of speech rate, timing variability, and fluency can indicate the presence of “mouthcohesion.” In practice, the concept tends to correlate with fluency and intelligibility, though it remains informal.

Applications and limitations. In speech therapy, understanding articulatory cohesion can inform interventions to improve fluency or reduce disfluencies. In language teaching, awareness of articulatory coordination can aid pronunciation training. However, because mouthcohesion is not a formal construct, researchers typically rely on established concepts such as coarticulation, speech motor control, and standard fluency metrics.