Final answer:
Normal English consonants are made using positive intraoral pressure with no nasal airflow. The lateral movement of the cheeks assists in controlling this pressure. Moreover, in English orthography, the spelling of [k] before 'le' changes depending on whether the preceding vowel is short ('ck') or long ('ke').
Step-by-step explanation:
Normal English consonants are produced with positive intraoral pressure with essentially no nasal airflow. Positive pressure refers to pressure that is greater than atmospheric pressure, and in the context of speech, it is the pressure used within the oral cavity to create various speech sounds. In contrast, negative pressure is lower than atmospheric pressure. Atmospheric pressure acts as a reference point and is considered to be zero when measuring pressures involved in respiratory processes.
In producing consonantal sounds, the lateral movement of the cheeks can be utilized as an articulatory gesture, as seen in actions such as sucking on a straw or when one blows air out, compressing the air in the mouth. This lateral compressive action is part of how we control intraoral pressure.
For the spelling of the consonant sound [k] in English, it follows a rule based on the preceding vowel's length. In words that have a [k] sound immediately before an at the word's end and a vowel with strong stress before the [k], the [k] is spelled 'ck' if the preceding vowel is short, and it is spelled 'ke' if the preceding vowel is long. These spelling patterns help signal the vowel length to readers and are part of the complex English spelling system tied to phonetics and phonology.