Chap 1: introduction to Phonetics

What is Phonetics?

• study of the production and perception of speech sounds.

various branches of Phonetics

Historical

Physiological

Acoustic

Perceptual

Experimental

Clinical

Historical Phonetics

The sound changes in words

Physiological Phonetics

The function of speech anatomy during production

Acoustic Phonetics

The differences in frequency, intensity, and duration of speech sounds. 

Perceptual Phonetics

Listener’s psychoacoustic response (perception)- loudness, pitch, length and quality 

Experimental Phonetics

Physiological, acoustic, and perceptual properties in a lab

Clinical Phonetics

Transcription of speech that varies from what is considered normal or typical. 

What is learned/studied in Phonetics?

• The process of speech production

• How speech sounds are formulated by articulators

• How individual sounds are created

• How sounds are combined to form syllables and words

• A new alphabet that is used to transcribe and represent speech. 

Articulators

• anatomical structures used to produce speech

Dialect

a variation of speech or language based on geographical area, native language background, and social or racial-ethnic group membership

Phonology

the systematic organization of speech sounds in the production of language

Phonetics focuses on

the study of speech sounds

Phonology focuses on

the linguistic (phonological) rules in which speech sounds are combined in meaningful units, syllables, words, and sentences.

All languages are comprised of…

phonological rules, syntactic/morphological rules (grammar), semantic rules (meaning), and pragmatic rules (use)