PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

WHAT IS PHONETICS?

is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech, or in the case of sign languages the equivalent aspects of sign.

WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP AMONG LINGUISTICS, PHONETHICS AND PHOLOGY?

The relationship between phonetics, phonology, and applied linguistics continues to be a paradoxical one. On the one hand, these fields of linguistics lend themselves more readily to applicationthan others since they deal with something more tangible and material than morphology, syntax, semantics, or historical research. On the other hand, there is something esoteric in phonetics and phonology: The objects they handle–sounds, articulatory features, acoustic spectra, stress degrees or melodies–are more elusive and hard to observe for the non-specialist than, say, suffixes, word order, or even meanings. Their terminology is rich and often forbidding, and they may sometimes seem to insist on pedantic distinctions or irrelevant detail (Dieling 1992). The validity of the phonetics–phonology dichotomy itself may be questioned when it comes to their application; however, the two fields continue to develop separately and grow further apart. Thus the application of the “sound sciences”, phonetics and phonology, is partly more advanced and partly more rudimentary than that of other linguistic branches.

WHAT IS LANGUAGE?

Language is the human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, and a language is any specific example of such a system. The scientific study of language is called linguistics.

WHICH ARE THE BRANCHES OF PHONETICS?


Articulatory phonetics

The study of how speech sounds are produced by the human vocal apparatus.


Acoustic phonetics

The study of the sound waves made by the human vocal organs for communication.


Auditory phonetics

The study of how speech sounds are perceived by the ear, auditory nerve, and brain


THEORY OF COMMUNICATION

 Is a field of information and mathematics that studies the technical process of information and the human process of human communication. According to communication theorist Robert T. Craig in his essay 'Communication Theory as a Field' (1999), "despite the ancient roots and growing profusion of theories about communication," there is not a field of study that can be identified as 'communication theory'