Definition of Phonetics

Definition of Phonetics

          Phonetics means the study and science of speech, sounds, their production, and the signs used to represent them. It has a long history, going back certainly to well over two thousand years ago. The central concerns in phonetics are the discovery of how speech should are produced, how they are used in the spoken language, how we can record speech sounds with written symbols and how we hear and recognize different sounds. Without learning the right pronunciation of any language one can never learn the right language. The knowledge of phonetics is quite necessary for a student who wants to acquire correct pronunciation of a language. A teacher of English must know phonetics of English. There and then only he or she will be able to point out mistakes of his or her students in their speech. He should tell the student how various sounds are made.

          Phonetics studies speech from three view points.

1.    It studies the speech organs which pronounce sounds language.

2.    It studies the air from one person to another.

3.    It studies the way in which human being perceive sounds through the medium of the air.

          That way, it studies all human vocal noise and concentrates its attention on the sounds, which occur in the languages of the world. In other words, phoneticians try to study how the various organs of speech – the lunges, the larynx, the soft palate, and tongue and the lips function in the production of speech. They also study the air-stream-mechanism. They examine the physical nature of sounds and analyzes the speech ware wit the help of instruments.