phonetics

Phonetics is the study of human sounds and phonology is the classification of the sounds within the system of a particular language or languages. Phonetics is divided into three types according to the production (articulatory), transmission (acoustic) and perception (auditive) of sounds. Three categories of sounds must be recognised at the outset: phones (human sounds), phonemes (units which distinguish meaning in a language), allophones (non-distinctive units). Sounds can be divided into consonants and vowels. The former can be characterised according to 1) place, 2) manner of articulation and 3) voice (voiceless or voiced). For vowels a coordinate system called a vowel quandrangle, within which actual vowel values are located, is used. Far more sounds exist in English than the English alphabet suggest; thus the system of phonetic symbol is required for accurate transcription. Phonetic transcription makes possible the careful analysis of the sounds of English, as well as any other language, and represent the first step in any linguistic analysis

target audience:First year students