What is phonetics and why does it matter?

Phonetics is a science that deals with the sounds of human speech.  Though we may perceive sounds of a particular language as something simple and mundane, it is much more than that.

The sounds of human speech are very complex and have been studied for centuries.  Through the history of linguistics as a science, phonetics has always been an important part of language studies.  The first phonetic examinations occurred as long ago as 500 BC in ancient India.

SEE ALSO: Pitfalls of Pronunciation

Now with the latest technological achievements there are better opportunities to examine speech sounds and track particular changes in spoken language.  Since the sounds of language are such a complex notion, phonetics encompasses three areas of study:

• Articulatory phonetics – studies production of speech sounds;
• Acoustic phonetics – studies transmission of sounds between speaker and a listener
• Auditory phonetics – examines how sounds are perceived by a listener.

Phonetics vs.  Phonology

Phonetics is often mentioned in relation to phonology which is a connected branch of linguistics.  The difference between the two is in the approach to the sounds.  While phonetics is mostly interested in phonemes or abstract cognitive units, phonology studies the concrete realizations of sounds of a language and is focused on the way sounds are created, perceived and transmitted.  Phonology deals with patterns of sounds, stress and intonation in a particular language and phonology examines the sounds that are not tied to a particular language only.

Significance of Phonetics

Phonetics is important not only for the scientists, but also for anyone who either teaches or learns a foreign language.  One of the most important applications of phonetics is in the teaching foreign languages.  It allows teachers to examine the differences between the sounds of source and target languages and explain this difference to learners.  It also enables learners to better understand and speak the language they are learning.

One of the most famous phoneticians was Henry Sweet who made  a number of important discoveries in the field of English phonetics.  In his book The Practical Study of Language (1899) Sweet says that:

“without phonetics we can neither observe nor record the simplest phenomena of language.”

His research has contributed to the science of phonetics in general and he is considered to be the father of what we know today as Received Pronunciation.  Received Pronunciation has been helping millions of English as a second language (ESL) learners over the years and is very important for standardizing English as a second language (ESL) teaching.

When it comes to English, which is a first language to half a billion people and the second to at least a billion, understanding phonetics carries additional weight.  With so many speakers scattered around the globe it is difficult to distinguish all the varieties of English.  This is why phonetics is particularly important for ESL learners who have to be careful about the variety of English they use.