[f. next + -ATION, or ad. F. vocalisation (1835).]
1. The action of vocalizing or the fact of being vocalized; utterance with the voice.
1842. Penny Cycl., XXII. 431/2. In this stammer the difficulty is not to produce voice, but to control its quantities. Vocalization freely takes place, but [etc.].
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., I. xxx. 410. His vocalization is something between the mooing of a cow and the deepest baying of a mastiff.
1865. Tylor, Early Hist. Man., iv. 73. Mere vocalizations of the movements of the mouth.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VII. 450. A break will at once occur in the vocalisation of the letter f.
b. Mode of utterance or pronunciation, esp. of vowel sounds.
1855. Paley, Æschylus, 167/1. It is of course uncertain whether the word … is a Greek vocalisation of a Persian word.
1868. Blackie, in Athenæum, 12 Dec., 797/2. In the gamut of the vowels … the English have set up a vocalization of their own.
1873. Earle, Philol. Eng. Tongue (ed. 2), § 179. Its French vocalisation has resulted in toil.
c. Expression in words or speech.
1887. Spectator, 5 Nov., 1473. Sir George Trevelyan has this week contributed largely to this vocalisation of the Homerulers’ case.
2. Mus. The action or art of producing musical sounds with the voice; exercise of the voice in singing.
1852. Smedley, L. Arundel, xxv. 215. It is not every one who is gifted with the … talent of vocalization.
1863. Ellen C. Clayton, Queens of Song, II. 386. Mlle. Piccolomini … bore a certain similitude to the great German singer, though in point of vocalization she was very inferior.
1883. 19th Cent., May, 867. On a visit to the Zoological Gardens,… I heard … illustrations of nearly all the principal subjects belonging to the repertoire of technical vocalisation.
b. spec. The action of singing upon a vowel to one or more notes.
1889. Grove’s Dict. Mus., IV. 321. Vocalisation is therefore one part of the operation of pronunciation, the other being articulation.
3. The insertion of vowel-signs in forms of writing consisting mainly or entirely of consonants.
1845. Pitman, Man. Phonography (ed. 7), 27. Vocalization of double Consonants. Ibid. (1847), (ed. 8), 35. Vocalization of Words.
1848. Athenæum, 10 June, 571/2. The question of vocalization … is one of the highest importance in Biblical criticism.
1883. A. Roberts, O. T. Revision, vii. 145. The important subject of vocalization … here falls to be more particularly considered.
4. Phonetics. Conversion into a voiced sound.
1874. Sweet, in Trans. Philol. Soc., 539. It seems, therefore, that the vocalization of initial (and also medial) s in English is merely a case of levelling, caused by the analogy of the vocal ð and v.
5. The utterance of vowel sounds.
1887. Alien. & Neurol., VIII. 7. Vocalization (vowelizing) is the expression of an emotion, an indistinct sensation, not an idea.
