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Phonetics is the branch of linguistics that deals with the physical production and reception of sound. We call these distinct sounds phones. Phonetics is not concerned with the meaning of sounds but instead focuses on the production, transmission, and reception of sound. It is a universal study and is not specific to any particular language.
By contrast, phonology is the branch of linguistics that describes the systems and patterns of speech sounds and helps us understand the relationship between meaning and speech sounds in a specific language. In phonology, we study phonemes. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound. In the English language, there are 44 phonemes (24 consonant sounds and 20 vowel sounds), all of which are represented by a unique letter or symbol in a phonemic chart, derived from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
It is helpful to think of a phoneme as the mental representation of a sound and a phone as the actual sound itself.
Prosodics (or prosody) is the study of the other elements of speech that appear in connected speech. For example, tone of voice, intonation, word stress, and rhythm. We name these elements of speech prosodic features. Prosodic features are yet another way of adding meaning to our speech.
Read on to find out more about each term and to learn about the International Phonetic Alphabet.
The term phonetics comes from the Greek word fōnḗ, which means sound or voice. Phonetics is an important branch of linguistics. It studies how humans both produce and receive sounds. Phonetics views speech from three specific viewpoints:
Phonetics is concerned with objectively describing the sounds used in speech. The International Phonetic Alphabet aims to assign a set of symbols and letters to those sounds. It is important to note that phonetics and the IPA are not specific to any particular language and can be used globally, as all human beings (with standard cognitive and physical abilities) can produce the same range of speech sounds.
Articulatory phonetics is concerned with the way speech sounds are created and aims to explain how we move our speech organs (articulators) to produce certain sounds. Articulatory phonetics is concerned with the transformation of aerodynamic energy (airflow through the vocal tract) into acoustic energy (sound). Sound can be produced simply by expelling air from the lungs; however, we can produce a large number of different sounds by moving and manipulating our speech organs. Our speech organs are the lips, teeth, tongue, palate, uvula, nasal and oral cavities, and vocal cords. Usually, two speech organs make contact with each other to change the airflow and create a sound. We call the contact between two speech organs the point of articulation.
Acoustic phonetics looks at the physical properties of sound and analyses how sound is transmitted through the air. We can examine the movement of sound by studying the sound waves that are created during speech. There are four different properties of sound waves: wavelength, period, amplitude, and frequency.
Sound waves have the measures: amplitude, distance and wavelength which are shown in graphs of sound waves. - StudySmarter original.
Auditory phonetics is the study of how humans perceive and analyse sounds. This branch of phonetics studies the reception and response to speech sounds, mediated by the ears, the auditory nerves, and the brain. Auditory phonetics can be particularly useful in the medical field as not everyone can easily decipher different sounds. For instance, some people suffer from Auditory Processing Disorder (APD), which is a disconnect between hearing and processing sounds.
Phonetics and phonics are often used interchangeably, but they are not quite the same. Phonics is a teaching method that helps students associate sounds with letters and is an essential part of teaching reading skills.
Phonology is the study of the 'sound system' of a language and examines phonemes, the smallest units of meaningful sound, in a language. Whereas phonetics studies the production, transmission, and reception of sound, phonology looks at the meanings we associate with those sounds in the context of a specific language or dialect.
It also looks at the pattern of sounds in a language and aims to explain how phonemes, represented by symbols, may sound different in different words. While the same sounds may be produced within several languages, no two languages organize their sound systems in the same way. The meaning assigned to sounds will likely differ from language to language.
Let's use the English language as an example.
English has 26 letters in its alphabet but 44 different phonemes (remember, these are the smallest units of sound that can help define meaning). The 44 phonemes include 19 consonants, 7 digraphs (2 consonants working together to create a new sound, ie 'sh' / ʃ /), 12 monophthongs (vowels that make a single sound, ie. the 'a' in cat), and 8 diphthongs (a sound formed by the combination of two vowels in a single syllable, ie the 'oi' / ɔɪ / sound in coin). The 44 phonemes of English can be found in the phonemic chart at the end of this article.
We can use phonology to examine how phonemes (represented by symbols) may sound different when presented in different words. Let's look at the vowel sounds, for example. There are only 5 vowel letters in English (a, e, i, o, u); however, they are used to represent 20 different vowel sounds.
Take a look at the use of the letter 'a' in the following words. How many different vowel sounds can you count?
Cat, rate, wasp, awe.
The letter 'a' was used to create four different vowel sounds. Now, take a look at the phonemic transcriptions to show how these different sounds are represented.
/ kæt /, / reɪt /, / wɒsp /, / ɔː /
On the other hand, the same vowel sound can also be represented by different letters. For example, awe (/ ɔː /) and ought / ɔːt /.
We can understand the importance of phonology by looking at minimal pairs.
Minimal pairs are two words that sound similar but have one phoneme different, positioned in the same place within the words. For example, lock and rock. The difference between the / l / and / r / sounds changes the entire meaning of the words.
The words 'sheep' and 'ship' are minimal pairs as they differ only in one phoneme (the vowel sounds). - StudySmarter original.
Take a look at this handy table which outlines the key differences between phonetics and phonology.
Prosodics is concerned with the elements of speech that are not individual phonetic segments (ie. vowels or consonants) and examines the other features that appear when we put sounds together in connected speech. We call these prosodic features, and they include:
Prosodic features are another way of adding meaning to the things we say.
As an example, let's take a look at how word stress can change the entire meaning of a sentence.
Look at the following sentence:
"I didn't say he stole the red hat."
If we stress the word 'I', it suggests that the speaker didn't say it, but perhaps someone else did.
If we stress the word 'say', it suggests that the speaker didn't say he stole the hat but perhaps wrote it down instead.
If we stress the word 'red', this suggests that the hat wasn't red but could have been another colour.
Every word in this sentence can be stressed to create a new meaning. Try saying the sentence aloud and adding word stress to different words. How many other meanings can you create?
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) was developed by the language teacher Paul Passy in 1888 and is a system of phonetic symbols based primarily on Latin script. The chart was developed as a way of accurately representing speech sounds. The IPA aims to represent all qualities of speech and sounds present within oral language, including; phones, phonemes, intonation, gaps between sounds, and syllables. IPA symbols consist of letters, diacritics, or both. The IPA is not specific to any particular language and can be used globally to help language learners.
Diacritics = Small symbols added to a phonetic symbol to show stress, small distinctions in sounds, and to show nasalization of vowels, length, stress, and tones.
The IPA was created to help describe sounds (phones), not phonemes; however, the chart is often used for phonemic transcription. The IPA itself is big. Therefore, when studying the English language, we would most likely use a phonemic chart (based on the IPA), which only represents the 44 English phonemes.
Here is the phonemic chart for the English language:
The English phonemic chart shows the phonemes used in the English language. - Englishclub.com
Don't worry, you are not expected to learn the IPA by heart. However, having a basic understanding of what it is and why it exists can help you immensely!
When we describe phones, we use narrow transcription (to include as many aspects of a specific pronunciation as possible) and place the letters and symbols between two square brackets ( [] ). Phonetic transcriptions give us lots of information about how to physically produce the sounds. For example, the word 'port' has an audible exhalation of air after the letter 'p'. This is shown in the phonetic transcription with a [ʰ] and the word port in phonetic transcript would look like this [pʰɔˑt].
Let's take a look at some more examples of phonetic transcription.
Head - [ˈhɛd]
Shoulders- [ˈʃəʊldəz]
Knees - [ˈniːz]
And - [ˈənd]
Toes - [ˈtəʊz]
Phonetic transcriptions for one word can have variation as different speakers may say the word slightly differently.
When describing phonemes, we use broad transcription (only mentioning the most notable and necessary sounds) and place the letters and symbols between two slashes ( / / ). For example, the English word apple would look like this / æpəl /.
Here are some further examples of phonemic transcriptions
Head - / hɛd /
Shoulders - / ˈʃəʊldəz /
Knees - / niːz /
And - / ənd /
Toes - / təʊz /
As you can see, both transcriptions are very similar, as they follow the IPA. However, look closely, and you will see some diacritics in the phonetic transcriptions that do not appear in the phonemic transcriptions. These diacritics provide a few more details about how to pronounce the actual sounds. These transcriptions all follow British English pronunciation.
Prosody, or prosodics, is concerned with the elements of speech that are not individual phonetic segments (ie vowels or consonants) and examines the other features that appear when we put sounds together in connected speech. Prosodic features include: Intonation and pitch, tone, word stress, accent, and rhythm.
An example of phonology is examining the pronunciation of the letter 's' at the end of a word. By examining the patterns and relationships of the English language, we know that the letter 's' is usually pronounced as a / z / sound at the end of a word when it follows a vowel or a voiced sound, such as the m, n , ng, l, b, d, g, v, voiced th, or r sound.
The three main branches of phonetics are: articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonetics, and auditory phonetics.
There are 44 phonemes in English. There are 19 consonants, 7 digraphs (2 consonants working together to create a new sound, ie SH / ʃ /), 12 monophthongs (vowels that make a singular sound, ie the 'a' in cat), and 8 diphthongs (a sound formed by the combination of two vowels in a single syllable, ie the 'oi' / ɔɪ / sound in coin).
Phonetics studies the physical production, transmission, and reception of sound and can be applied globally. In contrast, phonology examines the 'sound system' of a language. Phonology studies the meanings we associate with sounds in the context of a specific language or dialect.
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