Rearticulate

Rearticulate is a verb meaning to articulate again or to restate something in different words. In general use, it implies clarifying or emphasizing an idea by presenting it anew. Common synonyms include restate, rephrase, reformulate, reiterate, and recapitulate. The term appears in both everyday language and more technical contexts, where its precise shade of meaning may vary with the domain.

In linguistic or phonetic contexts, rearticulation can refer to producing an articulatory gesture again, often to adjust or correct the articulation of a speech sound within an utterance. This may occur due to coarticulation, emphasis, or a speaker’s correction during fluent speech. In fields such as speech-language pathology, rearticulation describes therapy techniques aimed at improving intelligibility by guiding a client to produce target phonemes with precise articulatory gestures, typically practiced in isolation and then within syllables and words.

Usage notes: Rearticulate tends to be more formal and technical than everyday synonyms. In academic or clinical writing, rephrase or restate may be preferred unless the emphasis is specifically on a second articulation event or a deliberate correction.

Examples: The lecturer rearticulated the thesis to address criticisms. The clinician asked the patient to rearticulate the target phoneme more clearly.

Origin: From Latin articulare with the prefix re- meaning again. See also articulation, articulation disorder, rephrasing.