Idiolectological Phonetics

[sucaeyl]

Each day, we typically hear the voices of dozens, if not hundreds, of individuals. Each of those people speak in their own idiolect; that is, with those lexical, gramatical and phonological choices that distinguish their speech from others. My question is, are (double copula?) the acoustic differences between speakers of the same language phonetic, i.e. caused by differing articulations, or are they completely physiological, caused instead by the unique shape of the vocal organs?

[Travis B.]

The nature of the differences in how people speak, such as what they elide or assimilate, what they choose in places where allophony gives them multiple choices, and what basic differences in vowel and consonant realization they have, all point at these not being physiological at all but being simply differences in individuals' idiolects at a psycholinguistic level. I would only presume that a small portion of idiolectal differences have any physiological component at all myself.