Spanish to English Art/Literary Linguistics Phonetics

Hello everyone,

A passage in a text I am translating has to do with phonetics. The text as a whole relates to the "duality" of our human existence in that we have the ability to shape our own world through the use of language (based on the linguistic idea of the "signified" and the "signifier"). This part of the text draws a link between all of our conceptions as binary oppositions (good has no meaning without evil sort of thing) and the idea that the components of phonemes also exist as opposing poles on a single axis. I am not very well-versed in phonetics and my question here is whether "diferencias articulatorias" in the following text can be translated as "articulation differences" and whether the same vowels (a, e and i) would apply in English.

Can anyone out there help?


El principio estructurador tanto de la expresión fonológica de los términos como de los componentes de los fonemas son las contraposiciones sobre un eje, v. gr. “b” – “p”; donde “bilabial” sería el eje; y “sorda – explosiva”, sería la contraposición; y por las DIFERENCIAS ARTICULATORIAS, v. gr. “a”, “e”, “i”, etc.


This is my provisional translation:

The structural principle of both the phonological expression of terms and the components of phonemes is that of opposing poles on a single axis, e.g. “p” – “p”, where “bilabial” would be the axis, “voiceless – plosive” the opposition and the ARTICULATION DIFFERENCES would be, for example, “a”, “e”, “i”, etc.


Thank you for your help!