What Are Phonetics and Phonology?

WHAT ARE PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY?

Phonetics is the branch of linguistics that deals with the production of speech by humans and. Phonetics looks at the physical manifestation of language in sound waves: how thers sounds are articulated and perceived. It is the science of speech sounds and the symbols by thich they are shown in writing and printing. This science is based on a study of all the parts of the body concerned in making speech. It includes the positions of the parts of the body necessary for producing spoken workds, and the effect of air from the lungs as it passes through the larynx, pharynx, vocal cords, nasal passages and mouth.

Phonetics sounds (phones) are actual speech sounds classified by the manner and place of articulation (that is by the way in which air is forced through the mouth and shaped by the tongue, teeth, palate, lips and in some languages by the uvula. The [r] of run and far are phonetically different because they are articulated differently. A phonetic system must indicate whether a vowel sound is long or short, runded, diphthongal (that is consiss of two sounds) or retroflex (made with the tip of the tongue curled up toward the palate). In addition the movement from one position to another, or glides, must be represented must be reprensented, stress pattern and pauses must e more exactly indicated, and pitch or intonation may also be noted.

Phonology on the other hand is central representation of sounds as part of a symbolic cognitive system; how abstract sound categories are manipulated in the processing of language. Therefore one can rightly say that phonetics is part of phonology because the former is intricately linked to the latter which is wider and broader in scope. phonology studies the patterns of sounds and their different positions in words

Phonetics and phonology are concerned with the forms of speech sounds. Sound can differentiate the meanings of the words. Phonetics studies actual sound by analyzing and modeling the speech signal. For example, the air pressure wave form can be recorded into a computer so that it can be visualized and analyzed in detail. Phonology deals with more abstract description of speech sound and tries to describe the regularities of sound patterns.

Phonetics and phonology have many possible applications both in theory and practice. Speech and speakers recognition and speakers synthesis is one of the applications. A speech does not only express the meanings of the words being used but can tell us the gender and even the approximate age of the speaker. It can also tell us what geographical area the speaker is from, the social class the person belongs to, whether the person is sick, tired, cold, happy or sad. In courts it is even used to help decide whether a suspect is telling the truth. This is because speech behaviour is one of the indications of speaker properties which are many and varied. For example a hoarse voice can indicate a night of heavy drinking, smoking a lot or just a natural voice quality. Foreign Language teaching and language teaching for hearing impaired persons, support of speech therapist, lexicography and forensic science are vital areas of application for phonetic and phonological knowledge.

Phonetics and phonology have links to many different disciplines. Linguistics (language), physics and electrical engineering, biology and psychology bring information together, which is important to obtain a broad and comprehensive view of speech.

Computational Linguistics is complementary to phonetics and phonology in that it focuses on the modeling of the higher levels of speech processing (morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics) which are needed to describe the entire speech production and perception chain.

Since speech analysis procedures and many applications involve computers, computer science supplies important tools. Pedagogy is important in second language teaching for hearing-impaired persons. In other to better understand speech perception and production pathologies, medicine is another area of interest. With its variety of related sub disciplines and applications, phonetics and phonology can be called a science at least at some level. With its established methods and goals, it offers a wide spectrum of different views of nature and function of speech and speech communication

THE BRANCHES OF PHONETICS

Phonetics is the study of speech sounds. Although language is obviously composed of sound, speech sound came to be the main focus of linguistic investigation only in the 20th century. 19th century linguists were more interested in written rather than spoken language. Only with the work of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure in the early 20th century did linguists recognize the primacy of sound in human language and the secondary, superficial nature of writing. As a result phonetics has therefore evolved into three main branches of type:

ACOUSTIC PHONETICS is the study of the physical properties of sounds, the air wave frequencies of which sounds consists. The frequency of vibrations measured in hertz; volume of sound measured in decibels. Instruments used to measure and records speech sounds include the sound spectrograph, which produces read outs called sound spectrograms.

AUDITORY PHONETICS is also called perception phonetics because it is the study of how sounds are perceived and recognized by the human ear and brain.

ARTICULATORY PHONETICS is the study of how sounds are produced by the vocal apparatus. The flow of sound during any given speech act can be divided into units of sound that recur in the flow of other speech acts. The standard used in phonetics transcription is the international phonetics Alphabet IPA and the phones (separate sounds) are enclosed in square brackets to distinguish them from letters : [0] = the sound of the vowel in the word code, not the letter O.

The division of the speech continuum into separate sounds or phones is made in the basics of both articulatory and acoustic data. Auditory, the sounds seen to the ear to change at a particular point. Acoustically, this change can be seen on a sound spectrogram. Auditorily, the change of one sound to another is the result of measurable changes in the movement of the speech organs.

In a nutshell, articulatory phonetics is concerned with the positions and movements of the lips, tongue, vocal tracts and folds and other speech organs in producing speech. Acoustic phonetics is concerned with the properties of the sound wave and how they ate received by the inner ear. Auditory phonetics concerns itself with speech perception, principally how the brain