What is Phonetics? Types of Phonetics

Phonetics, a level of linguistics, scientifically studies analyzes interprets the physical, physiological and psychological aspects and behaviours of speech sounds science. That is so to say, this science deals with three distinct but interrelated factors of speech sounds.

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1. How they are produced and which articulators or speech organs take part in producing particular speech sounds

2. How they are transmitted through the air from the speaker to the listener; and

3. How they are received and perceived by the listener by dint of his/ her auditory organs and ability. 

However, the subject-matter of phonetics is not limited to the production, transmission, and perception of vowels and consonants. Of equal importance are such prosodic and suprasegmental aspects of spoken language as duration, fundamental frequency, and intensity as they determine such linguistically relevant phenomena as tone and intonation, stress and emphasis, and the signalling of various boundaries-boundaries of morphemes and words, phrases, clauses, and sentences.

In addition, phoneticians, experts in phonetics, describe speech sounds with reference to their place of articulation, such as tongue, lips, jaws, palate, alveolar ridge, etc and manner of articulation, such as an explosion, friction, intermittent closure, etc.

It is, therefore, clear that phonetics is concerned with the defining features of all human vocal sounds, and takes account of only those sounds that are available in different languages. Since this level of linguistics resembles physics and physiology in the purpose of methods and instruments, now currently consider a pure science covering both theoretical and practical activities.

In sum, phonetics is a science of speech sounds, which studies their production, transmission and reception as well as prosodic and suprasegmental aspects of spoken language in an impartial and practical manner, even in the lab.

Types of phonetics

In the above, we have already seen that phonetics performs three distinct but interdependent tasks. Such as production, transmission and reception of speech sounds. Based on these functions, phonetics is divided into 3 types- 

1. Articulatory phonetics
2. Acoustic phonetics
3. Auditory phonetics

These 3 types cover the study of speech sounds on the basis of concrete and objective observation as well as scientific analysis. Let us now have more ideas of the scope and functions of these types-

Articulatory phonetics

This types of phonetics are concerned with the production of speech sounds. To produce speech sounds, we use different speech organs or articulators- lips, teeth, tongue, alveolar ridge, hard palate, soft palate, nasal passage, glottal folds, lungs, etc. Different speech organs behave in different manners to articulate different speech sounds. Hence, we can classify speech sounds on the basis of our experience of the speech organs, their interrelationships and their behaviours.

All these functions and factors are dealt with in articulatory phonetics. That is, articulatory phonetics studies speech organs as well as their movement and contact in the articulation of speech sounds and provides us with a classification of the sounds used in particular languages and/or language in general. To be brief, this type of phonetics is concerned with how different speech sounds are articulated by using different articulators.

Acoustic phonetics

This type of phonetics studies how speech sounds journey from the speaker's mouth to the listener's ears. To clarify, speech sounds articulated by the speaker are transmitted through the air to the listener. The transmission of speech sounds is constituted of some physical properties, such as frequency and amplitude resulting in sound waves. These physical properties of speech sounds are analyzed and investigated in acoustic phonetics. 

In other words, speech is not made up of a series of isolated sounds. Rather, it is a natural process resulting from the production of inter-related sounds conveyed by the speaker to the listener through the channel, that is air. The journey of speech sounds from the speaker to the listener is made in the form of sound waves comprising frequencies and amplitudes.

These sound waves are the subject matter of acoustic phonetics. Briefly speaking, this type of phonetics explores and describes how speech sounds are transmitted from the speaker to the listener through the air.

Auditory phonetics

This branch of phonetics deals with how the listener receives and realizes speech sounds. To be more specific, speech sounds articulated by the speaker and transmitted through the air are heard and perceived by the listener. And to listen to and realize speech sounds, the listener has to use his/her ears, auditory nerve and brain.

Hence, the reception and perception of speech sounds produce a complex process. This complex process is explored, analyzed and interpreted in auditory Phonetics. To mention, auditory phonetics studies varied auditory impressions of quality, pitch, length and loudness of speech sounds. It is, therefore found to be concerned with both physical and psychological aspects of speech sounds. In short, this type of phonetics analyzes and examines how we receive and realize speech sounds.