The word 吭声 is formed by combining the character 吭, which means to utter or emit sound from the throat, with the character 声, which means sound or voice; together they create a verb-object compound where 吭 acts as the verb indicating the action of producing sound and 声 serves as the object specifying that the action is directed toward making a sound, resulting in the meaning "to utter a sound" or "to speak up".