Branches of phonetics

Branches of phonetics. Phoneme. The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet).

Introduction

Language appeared and exists as the means of communication in the form of sounds and oral speech. Writing form is the image of sounds. So to master a language one should first and foremost master its sounds – the system of its sounds, syllable structure, word stress and intonation. All this is called phonetics. Phonetics may be considered the grammar of pronunciation. To succeed in making English sounds and intonation prefect you will need to know exactly how to make them. Together with the sharpness of your ear and your ability as an imitator the knowledge of how to produce correct sounds and intonation and how to apply them in speech will provide the desirable effect.

A learner of English must be able to pronounce isolated sounds and know how to treat them in different phonetic contexts. If you wish to understand and be understood in English you are to make a clear distinction between consonant and vowel sounds, weakening of unstressed vowels in connection with particular speech rhythm and intonation patterns. This course is designed so that to enable you to speak English more correctly, to understand native speakers and be understood by them.

Eg. 1 Are you fond of walking here?

Are you fond of working here?

Now you see how the single sound may affect the meaning.

Eg. 2 Alaska – I’ll ask her (the pronunciation is the same)

It’s necessary to add that sounds of any language undergo constant changes while letters change a little. So there is sometimes no correspondence between what we say (hear) or what we write. In English it’s especially noticeable as English orthography hasn’t changed for a long period of time, while speaking (the way we pronounce the words) changed a lot.

The term “phonetics” is of Greek origin - phone (meaning “sound”, “voice”). As a branch of science phonetics is concerned with the human noises by which the thought is actualized or given audible shape: the nature of these noises, their combination, and their function in relation to the meaning. In short, phonetics studies the sound system of the language (phonemes, word stress, syllabic structure and intonation) and human voice (tone and intonation).

Phonetics is concerned with the actual properties of speech sounds (phones) as well as those of non-speech sounds, and their production, audition and perception. It deals with the sounds themselves rather than the contexts in which they are used in languages.

Therefore it has three main branches: (1) articulatory phonetics (i.e., the study of how the human vocal organ produces sound); (2) acoustic phonetics (i.e., the study of the sound waves produced by the human vocal apparatus); (3) auditory phonetics (i.e., the examination of how speech sounds are perceived by the human ear).

Articulatory phonetics: In studying articulation, phoneticians attempt to document how humans produce speech sounds (vowels and consonants). That is, articulatory phoneticians are interested in how the different structures of the vocal tract, called the articulators (tongue, lips, jaw, palate, teeth etc.), interact to create the specific sounds. They are concerned with the positions and movements of the lips, tongue, vocal cords and other speech organs in producing speech.

Acoustic phonetics is concerned with the properties of the sound waves and how they are received by the inner ear. It studies the way in which the air vibrates between the speaker’s mouth and the listener’s ear. Acoustic phonetics investigates properties like the amplitude of a wave, its duration and its frequency.

Auditory phonetics, concerned with speech perception, principally how the brain forms perceptual representations of the input it receives. It investigates the hearing process. Auditory phonetics is a branch of phonetics concerned with the hearing, acquisition and comprehension of phonetic sounds of words of a language.

Phonetics was studied as early as 2,500 years ago in ancient India, with Pāṇini's account of the place and manner of articulation of consonants in his 5th century BC treatise on Sanskrit [12]

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