Phonetics
Part 1
Content:·
Articulatory phonetics
·
Auditory phonetics
·
Acoustic phonetics
·
Phonetics and Phonology
·
Speech sounds
·
Respiratory system - Lungs
Articulatory phonetics
Articulatory
phonetics is a part of phonetics that focuses on how we physically make speech
sounds. It looks at how our mouth, tongue, lips, and other parts work together
to produce the sounds we use in language.
When
studying articulatory phonetics, we talk about three main things:
Place
of articulation: This means where in our mouth or throat the
sound is made. For example, some sounds are made by touching our lips together
(like the sounds /p/ or /m/), while others are made by touching our tongue to
the roof of our mouth (like the sounds /t/ or /s/).
Manner
of articulation: This describes how the airflow is changed or
blocked to make the sound. Some sounds are made by completely blocking the air
briefly (like the sounds /p/ or /k/), while others are made by only partially
blocking the air (like the sounds /s/ or /f/), and some are made without
blocking the air at all (like vowels such as /a/ or /i/).
Voicing:
This refers to whether the vocal cords vibrate when making a sound. Some sounds
are made with vibration (like /b/ or /z/), while others are made without
vibration (like /p/ or /s/).
Researchers
use different methods to study articulatory phonetics, such as X-rays,
ultrasound, and MRI scans, to see how the mouth and throat move during speech.
By understanding how speech sounds are produced, we can analyze different languages,
study speech problems, and develop technologies like speech recognition and
synthesis systems.
Auditory phonetics
Auditory
phonetics is a part of phonetics that focuses on how we hear and understand
speech sounds. It studies how sounds are made by speakers, travel through the
air, and are then understood by our ears and brain.
Our
auditory system is important for understanding speech. When we talk, our mouth
and throat make different patterns of air pressure that create sound waves.
These sound waves reach the listener's ears and are processed by their auditory
system.
Auditory
phonetics tries to understand how we perceive speech. It explores how we hear
and group different speech sounds, how we tell similar sounds apart, and how we
get meaning from the sounds we hear. It also looks at how things like
background noise, the speaker's voice, and language patterns affect how we
understand speech.
Scientists
who study auditory phonetics use different methods to learn about speech
perception. They might ask people to do tasks like recognizing sounds or
telling them apart. They also use special machines like fMRI and EEG to see how
the brain processes speech.
Studying
auditory phonetics helps us understand how we hear and understand speech. It
has practical uses in fields like speech technology, audiology (hearing
health), and learning a second language. Knowing how people hear speech can
help us design better speech recognition systems, hearing aids, and ways to
teach languages.
Acoustic phonetics
Acoustic
phonetics is a part of phonetics that studies the physical aspects of speech
sounds. It focuses on analyzing and measuring the sounds we make when we speak.
The goal is to understand how different sounds are created, transmitted, and
heard.
When
we speak, our vocal tract, which includes our lungs, larynx, and other parts
involved in producing speech, creates sound waves. These sound waves travel
through the air as acoustic signals. Acoustic phonetics examines these signals
and studies their properties, like how loud they are, their pitch, how long
they last, and their characteristics in terms of frequency.
There
are some important ideas and measurements in acoustic phonetics:
Amplitude:
This refers to the strength or power of a sound wave. It affects how loud a
sound is perceived.
Frequency: It
tells us how many cycles a sound wave completes in a given time. It affects the
pitch of a sound. Higher frequencies mean higher-pitched sounds.
Spectrogram: It
is a picture that shows us how the frequencies of a sound wave change over
time. It helps us understand the different parts of a sound and their
characteristics.
Formants:
These are specific frequency areas in the sound wave of a vowel sound. They are
important for identifying and distinguishing vowels. The shape of our vocal
tract affects these formants.
Duration:
This tells us how long a sound lasts. It is important for telling apart
different speech sounds, especially consonants.
Intensity:
This refers to the power or energy of a sound wave. It affects how loud a sound
is perceived. Intensity is measured in decibels (dB).
Acoustic
phonetics is essential in many areas of research, like understanding how we
produce and hear speech, developing speech recognition technology, studying
speech for legal purposes, and helping people learn a second language. By
studying the acoustic properties of speech sounds, researchers can learn more
about how we make sounds and what influences how we hear them.
Phonetics and Phonology
Phonetics
and Phonology are two parts of language study that look at the sounds we make
when we speak. Although they are related, they focus on different things.
Phonetics
looks at the physical properties of sounds, like how we make them, how they
travel, and how we hear them. It studies the different ways sounds are made in
different languages, such as the movements of our mouth and throat, the air
that carries the sounds, and how our ears perceive them. Phonetics also
examines the physical features of sounds, like how high or low they are, how
loud they are, and how long they last.
Phonology,
on the other hand, looks at how sounds are organized and used in specific
languages. It focuses on the ideas and rules we have in our minds about how
sounds work in language. Phonology explores how sounds function and interact in
a language to convey meaning and distinguish words. It studies sound patterns,
like the unique sounds we use in a language, the rules for combining sounds,
and the changes sounds undergo in different situations. Phonology is interested
in the structure and organization of sound systems and how they contribute to
language meaning and communication.
In
short, phonetics deals with the physical side of speech sounds, while phonology
looks at the abstract organization and patterns of sounds in languages. Both
fields are important for understanding and describing the complex nature of
human language.
Speech sounds
Phonetics
is the study of speech sounds. It looks at how sounds are made, heard, and
understood by people. Speech sounds are the small parts that make up words and
give them meaning. Phonetics groups these sounds into different categories
based on how they are made and what they sound like.
Articulatory
phonetics studies how speech sounds are produced by our mouth,
throat, and other parts of our body. It looks at the movements and positions of
our lips, tongue, and vocal cords when making specific sounds. For example, the
"p" sound is made by closing our lips and pushing out a burst of air.
Acoustic
phonetics focuses on the physical properties of speech sounds. It
examines the sound waves that are created when we speak, like their loudness,
pitch, and length. These properties help us tell the difference between
different sounds.
Perceptual
phonetics studies how we hear and understand speech sounds. It
explores how we recognize and group sounds together, and how the context can
affect our understanding.
Phonetics
uses special symbols called the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to
represent speech sounds. Each sound has its own symbol or combination of
symbols. For example, the symbol for the "p" sound is [p].
In
simple terms, phonetics helps us study and describe the sounds we make when we
talk. It helps us understand how we produce and interpret speech, which is
important for understanding language.
Respiratory system - Lungs
The
lungs are important organs in our body that help us breathe and talk. They are
like sponges and are located in our chest. When we speak, air comes out from
our lungs and travels through our body to make sounds. The lungs give us the
power to make the air flow needed for talking.
When
we talk, our muscles make the lungs expand and take in air. This makes the air
pressure inside the lungs go down, and we breathe in. When we finish talking,
the muscles relax, and the lungs go back to their normal size. This makes the
air pressure inside the lungs go up, and we breathe out. The air that comes out
is changed by other parts of our body, like our throat, vocal cords, and mouth,
to make different sounds.
The
way we move our tongue, lips, teeth, and the roof of our mouth also helps us
make different sounds when we talk. By moving these parts, we can make many
different sounds that make up our language.
To
put it simply, the lungs are really important for breathing and talking. They
work together with other parts of our body to make the air move and create
different sounds when we speak.
0 Comments