Lesson 2: Phonetics and Phonology

[ESAL SPIRIT]

Lesson 2: Phonetics and Phonology

In this lesson we will study two important subfields of Linguistics: Phonetics and Phonology.These two basic topics are concerned with speech, that is, with the ways humans produce and hear speech.
Brief Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology

Phonetics and Phonology are concerned with speech, that is, with the ways humans produce and hear speech. On the one hand Phonetics the scientific study of the sounds of human language, includes three main branches: Articulatory Phonetics, Acoustic Phonetics, Auditory Phonetics.

Articulatory Phonetics studies how speech sounds are produced by brain and mouth. Acoustic Phonetics is interested in the study of the physics of speech sound. Auditory Phonetics deals with the study of how sounds are perceived by the ear and the brain. On the other hand, Phonology deals with the systems and the patterns of sound that occur in certain types of languages.

Both disciplines must be studied together: while Phonology is the study of the abstract side of the sounds of the language, Phonetics studies the actual realizations. As we know Speech is a complex human phenomenon which involves mental and physical components so the two disciplines must be studied together for its complexity.