|
|
Encyclopedia entry: PHONETICS
- Article from:
- Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language
- Author:
Copyright© Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language 1998, originally published by Oxford University Press 1998. (Hide copyright information)
|
PHONETICS.
The science or study of the sounds of
SPEECH
. There are three kinds: (1) Articulatory phonetics, the oldest branch of the subject, which investigates the ways in which sounds are made. Here, the phonetician is trained to recognize, produce, and analyse speech sounds. During the 20c, phonetics has developed as a laboratory subject, in which instruments are used to study the production of speech in the vocal tract: for example, by monitoring the positions and movement of organs, or breath flow and air pressure. Electropalatography uses an artificial
PALATE
to record, display, and store data on articulatory movements inside the mouth. (2) Acoustic phonetics is concerned with the ...