The Articulation Test as a Linguistic Technique

After a survey of the literature on the articulation test, the value of this method of obtaining a speech sample for linguistic analysis is assessed. The author distinguishes between the test procedure through the use of which the investigator obtains a corpus of linguistic raw material and the test analysis in which the investigator first analyses and describes certain aspects of his linguistic data and then compares that description with a model for the purpose of evaluation. She argues that although the test procedure is an efficient method of eliciting speech from children, the traditional method of articulation test analysis has numerous theoretical and practical defects. These shortcomings are described. The author concludes that a more valid method of test analysis can be evolved only after more research is carried out by investigators well grounded in phonetics and linguistics.