Phonetics Lauren Dobbs

What is it? Phonetics is the study of the sounds of speech. It focuses both on the physical production of the sounds as well as the physiological production. The study of phonetics first began in 500 B.C. where it mainly studied the articulation of consonants. (modern phonetics didn’t start till 1867) There are three main sections of phonetics: Articulator: the vocal structures of the throat that create sound Acoustic: structure of sounds and how they form words Auditory: the ear and its relation to creating speech

The Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a phonetic system based on the Latin language along with some Greek The IPA shows how sounds are pronounced in relation to the mouth and throat The IPA has also been used to create to new written languages http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/english/frameset.html

Articulator The main focus of articulatory phonetics is articulation It focuses on the process of turning air into sound Creating sound is a process of air flow, vocal flow vibration, the articulators, and using the muscles of the throat and diaphragm There are two types of sound Periodic: sound produced by vocal fold vibrations and the tongue (vowel) Aperiodic: sound produced by the oral cavity (consonants)

Acoustic Acoustic phonetics studies properties of sound such as wavelength, duration, and amplitude. Acoustic studies allowed sounds to be analyzed to determine the differences in vowels. Through acoustic phonetics periodic and aperiodic sound was discovered Deals with quality of voice, resonance, intonation, and sound on a spectral level

Auditory Auditory phonetics studies how sound is perceived by the ear It is used to help create hearing aids and is also used when learning a foreign-language First the fact that sound is occurring is processed then the sound is further analyzed to give meaning to it. Acoustic cues are the main factor. Babies first distinguish the differences in sounds before the language

Phonetics and Knowing Sounds sound different because everyone speaks differently yet we are able to perceive vowels and consonants as constants. There are different triggers that give sounds meaning, vowel duration can be a stress. The resonance of sound varies with the voice and so the brain must process the resonance and then line it up with the rest of the information to identify it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9GBf8y0lY0

Sources Wikipedia.org citeseerx.ist.edu http://www.physics.ucla.edu/demoweb/demomanual/acoustics/effects_of_sound/chladni_plate.html