Phonetics

Phonetics (pronounced /fəˈnɛtɪks/, from the Greek:φωνή, phōnē, 'sound, voice') is a branch of linguisticsthat comprises the study of the sounds of human speech,or—in the case of sign languages—the equivalent aspectsof sign.[1] It is concerned with the physical propertiesof speech sounds or signs (phones): their physiologicalproduction, acoustic properties, auditory perception, andneurophysiological status. Phonology, on the other hand,is concerned with the abstract, grammatical characteriza-tion of systems of sounds or signs.The field of phonetics is a multilayered subject oflinguistics that focuses on speech. In the case of oral lan-guages there are three basic areas of study:

• Articulatory phonetics: the study of the productionof speech sounds by the articulatory and vocal tractby the speaker.

• Acoustic phonetics: the study of the physical trans-mission of speech sounds from the speaker to thelistener.

• Auditory phonetics: the study of the reception andperception of speech sounds by the listener.

These areas are inter-connected through the commonmechanism of sound, such as wavelength (pitch), ampli-tude, and harmonics.

1 History

Phonetics was studied as early as the 3rd century BCin the Indian subcontinent, with Pāṇini's account of theplace andmanner of articulation of consonants in his trea-tise on Sanskrit. The major Indic alphabets today ordertheir consonants according to Pāṇini’s classification.Modern phonetics begins with attempts—such as thoseof Joshua Steele (in Prosodia Rationalis, 1779) andAlexander Melville Bell (in Visible Speech, 1867)—to introduce systems of precise notation for speechsounds.[2][3]

The study of phonetics grew quickly in the late 19th cen-tury partly due to the invention of phonograph, whichallowed the speech signal to be recorded. Phoneticianswere able to replay the speech signal several times andapply acoustic filters to the signal. In doing so, one wasable to more carefully deduce the acoustic nature of thespeech signal.

Using an Edison phonograph, Ludimar Hermann investi-gated the spectral properties of vowels and consonants. Itwas in these papers that the term formant was first intro-duced. Hermann also played vowel recordings made withthe Edison phonograph at different speeds in order to testWillis’, and Wheatstone’s theories of vowel production.

2 Relation to phonology

In contrast to phonetics, phonology is the study of howsounds and gestures pattern in and across languages, re-lating such concerns with other levels and aspects of lan-guage. Phonetics deals with the articulatory and acousticproperties of speech sounds, how they are produced, andhow they are perceived. As part of this investigation, pho-neticians may concern themselves with the physical prop-erties of meaningful sound contrasts or the social mean-ing encoded in the speech signal (socio-phonetics) (e.g.gender, sexuality, ethnicity, etc.). However, a substantialportion of research in phonetics is not concerned with themeaningful elements in the speech signal.While it is widely agreed that phonology is grounded inphonetics, phonology is a distinct branch of linguistics,concerned with sounds and gestures as abstract units (e.g.,distinctive features, phonemes, mora, syllables, etc.) andtheir conditioned variation (via, e.g., allophonic rules,constraints, or derivational rules).[4] Phonology relatesto phonetics via the set of distinctive features, whichmap the abstract representations of speech units to ar-ticulatory gestures, acoustic signals, and/or perceptualrepresentations.[5][6][7]

3 Subfields

Phonetics as a research discipline has three mainbranches:

• Articulatory phonetics is concerned with the artic-ulation of speech: The position, shape, and move-ment of articulators or speech organs, such as thelips, tongue, and vocal folds.

• Acoustic phonetics is concerned with acoustics ofspeech: The spectro-temporal properties of thesound waves produced by speech, such as theirfrequency, amplitude, and harmonic structure.

1

2 8 NOTES

• Auditory phonetics is concerned with speechperception: the perception, categorization, andrecognition of speech sounds and the role of theauditory system and the brain in the same.

4 Transcription

Main article: Phonetic transcription

Phonetic transcription is a system for transcribing soundsthat occur in a language, whether oral or sign. Themost widely known system of phonetic transcription, theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), provides a stan-dardized set of symbols for oral phones.[8][9] The stan-dardized nature of the IPA enables its users to transcribeaccurately and consistently the phones of different lan-guages, dialects, and idiolects.[8][10][11] The IPA is a use-ful tool not only for the study of phonetics, but alsofor language teaching, professional acting, and speechpathology.[10]

5 Applications

Applications of phonetics include:

• Forensic phonetics: the use of phonetics (the scienceof speech) for forensic (legal) purposes.

• Speech recognition: the analysis and transcriptionof recorded speech by a computer system.

6 Practical phonetic training

Studying phonetics involves not only learning theoreti-cal material but also undergoing training in the produc-tion and perception of speech sounds.[12] The latter isoften known as ear-training. Students must learn con-trol of articulatory variables and develop their ability torecognize fine differences between different vowels andconsonants.[13][14] As part of the training, they must be-come expert in using phonetic symbols, usually those ofthe International Phonetic Alphabet.[15]

7 See also• Experimental phonetics

• Index of phonetics articles

• International Phonetic Alphabet

• Speech processing

• Acoustics

• Biometric word list

• Phonetics departments at universities

• X-SAMPA

• ICAO spelling alphabet

• Buckeye Corpus

• SaypU (Spell As You Pronounce Universally)

8 Notes[1] O'Grady (2005) p.15

[2] T.V.F. Brogan: English Versification, 1570–1980. Balti-more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981. E394.

[3] Alexander Melville Bell 1819-1905 . University at Buf-falo, The State University of New York.

[4] Kingston, John. 2007. The Phonetics-Phonology Inter-face, in The Cambridge Handbook of Phonology (ed.Paul DeLacy), Cambridge University Press.

[5] Halle, Morris. 1983. On Distinctive Features and their ar-ticulatory implementation, Natural Language and Linguis-tic Theory, p. 91 - 105

[6] Jakobson, Roman, Gunnar Fant, and Morris Halle. 1976.Preliminaries to Speech Analysis: The Distinctive Fea-tures and their Correlates, MIT Press.

[7] Hall, T. Allen. 2001. Phonological representations andphonetic implementation of distinctive features, Moutonde Gruyter.

[8] O'Grady (2005) p.17

[9] International Phonetic Association (1999) Handbook ofthe International Phonetic Association. Cambridge Uni-versity Press.

[10] Ladefoged, Peter (1975) A Course in Phonetics. Orlando:Harcourt Brace. 5th ed. Boston: Thomson/Wadsworth2006.

[11] Ladefoged, Peter & Ian Maddieson (1996) The Sounds ofthe World’s Languages. Oxford: Blackwell.

[12] Jones, Daniel (1948). “The London school of phonetics”.Zeitschrift fur Phonetik 11 (3/4): 127-135. (reprinted inW.E.Jones and J. Laver Phonetics in Linguistics, Long-man, 1973, pp. 180-6)

[13] J.C.Catford A Practical Introduction to Phonetics (2001),Oxford University Press, 2nd Ed., p. 1, ISBN 978-0199246359

[14] Abercrombie, D. (1967). Elements of General Phonetics.Edinburgh. p. 155

[15] Peter Roach http://www.peterroach.net/practical-phonetic-training.html

3

9 References• O'Grady, William et al. (2005). ContemporaryLinguistics: An Introduction (5th ed.). Bedford/St.Martin’s. ISBN 0-312-41936-8.

• Stearns, Peter; Adas, Michael; Schwartz, Stuart;Gilbert, Marc Jason (2001). World Civilizations (3rded.). New York: Longman. ISBN 9780321044792.

10 External links• the Web Site of the Phonetic Sciences Laboratoryof the Université de Montréal.

• The International Society of Phonetic Sciences(ISPhS)

• A little encyclopedia of phonetics, Peter Roach.(pdf)

• The sounds and sound patterns of language U Penn

• IPA handbook

• Real-time MRI video of the articulation of speechsounds, from the USC Speech Articulation andkNowledge (SPAN) Group

• Extensive collection of phonetics resources on theWeb (University of North Carolina)

• Phonetics and Phonology (University of Osnabrück)

• UCLAPhonetics Laboratory Archive Audio record-ings illustrating phonetic structures from over 200languages with phonetic transcriptions, with scansof original field notes where relevant

• A note on practical phonetic training

4 11 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

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