Тема 1. «Phonetics as one of the branches of linguistics»

Phonetics as one of the branches of linguistics

Although our species has the scientific name Homo sapiens, ‘thinking human’, it has

often been suggested that a more appropriate name would be Homo loquens, or ‘speaking

human’. Many species have sound based signalling systems, and they can communicate

with other members of the same species on various topics of mutual interest. But the

structure of the human vocal organs allows a particularly wide range of sounds to be used,

and these sounds are put together in an extraordinarily sophisticated way.

In Greek “phoneticos” means “pertaining to voice and sound”. This is the science that

is particularly concerned about the sounds of the human speech. Phonetics studies the sound

system of the language. Speech sounds present the object of study in phonetics. There are

two subdisciplines in linguistics which deal with sounds, namely phonetics and phonology,

and to understand how the sounds combine and pattern together, we will need aspects of

both.

The significance of phonetics is evident since speech is the most important means of

human intercourse. Moreover, no language description is complete without the detailed

description of its spoken medium. Each person grows up learning and speaking only a

particular language or languages, and each language makes use of a subset of the full range

of possible, producible and distinguishable sounds. When we turn to the characteristics of

the English sound system that make it specifically English, and different from French or

Russian, we move into the domain of phonology, which is the language-specific selection

and organization of sounds to signal meanings. Phonologists are interested in the sound

patterns of particular languages, and in what speakers and hearers need to know, and

children need to learn, to be speakers of those languages: in that sense, it is close to

psychology. We do not necessarily access our phonological knowledge or talk about it in

detail: we often have intuitions about language without knowing where they come from, or

how to express them precisely. The relationship between phonetics and phonology is a

complex one, but we might initially approach phonology as narrowed-down phonetics. It is

the job of the phonologist to express generalizations of this sort in precise terms: just

because this knowledge is not conscious, this does not mean it is unimportant or not worth

understanding. Phonology involves a reduction to the essential information, to what

speakers and hearers think they are saying and hearing. To get a full idea of the way the

sounds of a language work, we need to study both the phonetics and the phonological

system of the language concerned. Both phonetics and phonology are important components

of linguistics, which is the science that is concerned with the general study of language.

What is meant when we speak of phonetics as a science? We could indisputably state

that phonetics is the most fundamental branch of linguistics. In fact, phonetics is one of the

oldest branches of linguistics. The fundamental areas of interest in phonetics were

established by ancient priests in India. They were the first to state principles of articulation

and classified speech sounds according to their articulatory features. These rules were

necessary because a unified way of reading sacred texts was needed. In order to preserve the

religious rituals called Vedas, the priests developed a very efficient system of rules for the

description of sound articulation.

Phonetics may be thought to be primarily concerned with the expression level, but it is

obliged to consider the content level as well. Phonetics provides objective ways of

describing and analysing the range of sounds the humans use and by which the thought is

actualized or given audible shape. Only those sound sequences, produced by human organs

of speech, which are, or can be, carriers of organized information are studied by phonetics. 9

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics equal in status to other branches: lexicology,

grammar, stylistics. It is closely connected with other branches of linguistics. Speech

sounds, which are studied by phonetics, form words that are studied by lexicology. Words

are combined into sentences according to grammar rules, which are studied by grammar.

The sentences are pronounced with certain intonation.

Phonetics is the study of the way speech sounds are produced and interpreted. This

includes the articulation and perception of speech sounds and investigations into the

character of and the explanation for the universal constraints on the structure of speech

sound inventories and speech sound sequences. It increasingly encompasses the design of

mechanical systems to code, transmit, synthesize, and recognize speech. It also includes the

study of how speech sounds vary in different styles of speaking, in different phonetic

contexts, over time, and over geographical regions; how children first learn the sounds of

their mother tongue; how best to learn to pronounce the sounds of another language; and

investigations into the causes of and the therapy for defects of speech and hearing.

Branches of phonetics

Phonetics is the scientific study of speech. It has a long history, going back to well over

two thousand years ago. The central concerns in phonetics are the discovery of how speech

sounds are produced, how they are used in spoken language, how we can record speech

sounds with written symbols and how we hear and recognize different sounds. When we

study the production of speech sounds we can observe what speakers do (articulatory

observation) and we can try to feel what is going on inside our vocal tract (kinaesthetic

observation). The second area is where phonetics overlaps with phonology: usually in

phonetics we are only interested in sounds that are used in meaningful speech, and

phoneticians are interested in discovering the range and variety of sounds used in this way

in all the known languages of the world. This is sometimes known as linguistic phonetics.

Thirdly, there has always been a need for agreed conventions for using phonetic symbols

that represent speech sounds; the International Phonetic Association has played a very

important role in this. Finally, the auditory aspect of speech is very important: the ear is

capable of making fine discrimination between different sounds, and sometimes it is not

possible to define in articulatory terms precisely what the difference is. A good example of

this is in vowel classification: while it is important to know the position and shape of the

tongue and lips, it is often very important to have been trained in an agreed set of standard

auditory qualities that vowels can be reliably related to. Example: Russian speakers do not

differentiate sounds [ñ] and [É], as there is no meaningful difference between such sounds

in Russian.

The object of study in phonetics – a speech sound – is a diverse phenomenon. Branches

of phonetics study speech sounds from different points of view. According to the aspect in

which the spoken medium of the language is investigated, we may distinguish general

phonetics, which studies phonetic systems of any languages irrespectively of their relations

or similarity. General phonetics defines fundamental phonetic concepts. It investigates laws

governing changes, which speech sounds undergo, and finds out types and causes of similar

changes in various languages.

Comparative phonetics studies the correlation between the phonetic systems of two or

more languages and finds out the correspondences between their speech sounds. In most

cases, languages studied by comparative phonetics are related. Special phonetics deals with

the sound system of a specific language. The sound system of the particular language may

be studied synchronically, with reference to a definite period of time (descriptive 10

phonetics); or diachronically (historical phonetics). Historical phonetics traces and

establishes the successive changes in the phonetic system of a given language at different

stages of its historical development.

The difference between the theoretical and practical phonetics is obvious. Phonetic

explanation of the language system bears descriptive character, and then we speak of

theoretical phonetics. Practical phonetics has prescriptive character. The results of the

linguistic research are used for practical use. Applied phonetics is used for teaching

languages practically, speech synthesis and analysis. Teaching phonetics is an arduous task

because it involves teaching pronunciation, which includes certain complex of concepts and

terms, and speaking about modern scientific achievements in phonetics.

Knowledge of the basics for the articulation is simply necessary for teaching locution

or enunciation. Natural living human speech is a very complex and multiform phenomenon.

In real speech events, all elements appear in syntagmatic sequences. As they follow one

another, they naturally affect each other. Phoneticians generally have no hesitation in telling

foreign learners how they should pronounce the language they are learning, but they also

should give advice to native speakers on how to acquire a different accent or speaking style.

Though this is nowadays scorned as something that belongs only in expensive private

schools for upper-class girls, teaching correct pronunciation has a respectable ancestry that

goes back to the Greek teachers of rhetoric over two thousand years ago. We should not

assume that everyone knows how to speak their native language with full clarity and

intelligibility. There has been considerable controversy in recent years over whether

children should be taught in school how to speak with a "better" accent. Most people would

agree that this sounds like an unwelcome attempt to "level out" accent differences in the

community and to make most children feel inferior. Some of the more extreme statements

on the subject have claimed that children's speech should be left untouched even if as a

result the child will have difficulties in communicating outside its local environment, and

may experience difficulty in getting a job on leaving school.

Physiological knowledge of sound articulation is necessary for correcting defects in

people’s speech (logopaedics). Applied phonetics is widely used in studies of sound

technology, connected with the synthesis and analysis of human speech. Speech analysis

plays an important role in computer speech synthesizing. The results of the fundamental

phonetics are used in coaching normal oral speech to physically challenged people

(surdopedagogics).

From the point of view of its articulatory characteristics, the sound is the result of

certain movements of the organs of speech. The branch of phonetics, which studies and

classifies speech sounds, as our speech apparatus produces them, is called articulatory

phonetics. Articulatory investigation of speech sounds is done on the basis of a good

knowledge of physiology. Alongside with the direct and indirect observation of the

movements and positions of speech organs it makes use of such instruments and technical

devices as a hand-mirror, laryngoscope, artificial palate, photographs, X-rays. Articulatory

phonetics is the oldest and the most developed branch of all phonetic sciences. Its origin

may be traced back to ancient India where the priests developed a very efficient system of

rules for the description of sound articulation which is widely used by present-day linguists

to describe phonetic systems of languages. Nowadays there is a special organization (IPA –

International Phonetic Association) which was established in 1886 as a forum for teachers

who were inspired by the idea of using phonetics to improve the teaching of the spoken

language to foreign learners. The organization plays an important part in systematization of

the linguistic data, acquired in the course of experiments. As well as laying the foundations 11

for the modern science of phonetics, the Association had a revolutionary impact on the

language classroom in the early decades of its existence, where previously the concentration

had been on proficiency in the written form of the language being learned. The Association

is still a major international learned society. It has taken the responsibility for maintaining a

standard set of phonetic symbols for use in practical phonetics, presented in the form of a

chart. The set of symbols is usually known as the International Phonetic Alphabet (and the

initials IPA are therefore ambiguous). The alphabet is revised from time to time to take

account of new discoveries and changes in phonetic theory (Appendix 1).

A sound is a physical phenomenon that is why it can be studied from the physical point

of view: when sound travels through the air from the speaker's mouth to the hearer's ear it

does so in the form of vibrations in the air. It is possible to measure and analyze these

vibrations by mathematical techniques, usually by using specially-developed computer

software to produce spectrograms. This side of the sound matter includes its acoustic

properties and articulatory characteristics. More specifically, articulatory phonetics

identifies precisely which speech organs and muscles are involved in producing the different

sounds of the world’s languages. Those sounds are then transmitted from the speaker to the

hearer, and acoustic (phonoacoustics) phonetics focuses on the physics of speech, its

acoustic properties, as the sound travels through the air in the form of sound waves. It

follows that phonetics has strong associations with anatomy, physiology, physics and

neurology. Auditory phonetics studies the effect sound waves have on a hearer’s ears and

brain. Acoustic phonetics also studies the relationship between activity in the speaker's vocal

tract and the resulting sounds. Analysis of speech by acoustic phonetics is claimed to be

more objective and scientific than the traditional auditory method which depends on the

reliability of the trained human ear. Many linguists consider acoustic and auditory aspects

of the sound to present the same phenomenon. However, the production and the perception

of the sound are two different matters. Acoustic phonetics is a rather young science; it dates

back from the end of the XIX

th

century. The investigation of the sound was done with the

help of phonographs at that time. Further development of the physics and technology

presented ample opportunities to study acoustic and articulatory properties of the sound:

oscillographs, spectrographs and other devices were invented. The introduction of machines

into phonetics has resulted in their use for detailed study of the sound matter and in the

articulatory process at any given moment and in the changes of this phenomena from

moment to moment. This type of investigation with sensory analysis is widely used in

experimental phonetics. Experimental phonetics has quantitative character it is based on

numerical measurement of sound characteristics. It makes use of controlled experiments,

which means that the experimenter has to make sure that the results could only be caused by

the factor being investigated and not by some other. Now computer programs make the

research of speech much easier. Universities of North America and Britain investigate the

acoustic qualities of the sound with the help of such programs as PRAAT, xwaves,

wavesurfer etc. Instrumental phonetics has a quantitative approach. It attempts to

characterize speech in terms of measurements and numbers, rather than by relying on

listeners' impressions. Many different instruments have been devised for the study of speech

sounds.

Phonetics is divided into segmental phonetics, which is concerned with individual

sounds, and suprasegmental phonetics, which studies phonetic phenomena actualized on

larger units of connected speech: syllables, words, phrases and texts.

Methods of investigation in phonetics. Practical application of phonetics12

Quite a lot of the work done in phonetics is descriptive. It provides an account of how

sounds in different languages and accents are pronounced, how phonetic units are

combined, how they influence each other. Some part of work done in phonetics is

prescriptive. It states how the sounds and larger phonetic sequences ought to be pronounced.

An increasing amount of phonetic research is experimental; it is aimed at the development

and scientific testing of hypotheses. Phoneticians use various methods to investigate the

sound of a language.

We have already mentioned methods of observation both direct and indirect which

were used by the phoneticians to establish fundamental principles of sound articulation.

Articulatory phonetics borders with anatomy and physiology. Tools used in this field enable

the investigators to measure the movement of the air. This generally means direct

observation of lip movement, tongue movement, combined with x-ray photography,

laryngoscopic investigation of vocal cord movement, X-rays. In the development of

experimental phonetics, radiography has played a very important role and much of what we

know about the dimensions and movements of the vocal tract has resulted from the

examination of X-ray photos and film. In the last twenty years there has been a sharp

decline in the amount of radiographic research in speech since the risk from the radiation is

now known to be higher than was suspected before. The technique known as the X-ray

Microbeam, developed in Japan and the USA, revived this research for some time: a

computer controls the direction of a very narrow beam of low-intensity radiation and builds

up a picture of articulatory movements through rapid scanning. The equipment was

extremely expensive, but produced valuable results. In present-day research, other

techniques such as measuring the movements of articulators by means of electromagnetic

tracking are more widely used.

Instrumental methods deriving from physiology and physics were introduced into

phonetics in the second half of the XIXth century. The use of machines is valuable in

ascertaining the nature of limitations and characteristics of the human sensory apparatus by

providing finer and more detailed analysis against which sensory analysis can be accessed.

Experimental research is carried out in all fields of phonetics: in the articulatory field, we

measure and study how speech is produced, in the acoustic field we examine the

relationship between articulation and the resulting acoustic signal, and look at physical

properties of speech sounds in general, while in the auditory field we do perceptual tests to

discover how the listener's ear and brain interpret the information in the speech signal.

Acoustic phonetics comes close to studying physics and the tools used in this area help to

measure and analyze the movement of the air in terms of acoustics. Direct observation is

generally combined with such technical devices as spectrograph, intonograph, and other

sound analyzing and sound synthesizing machines. The best known technique for acoustic

analysis is spectrography, in which a computer produces a "picture" of speech sounds. Such

computer systems can usually also carry out the analysis of fundamental frequency for

producing "pitch displays". For analysis of articulatory activity there are many instrumental

techniques in use, including radiography (X-rays) for examining activity inside the vocal

tract, laryngoscope for inspecting the inside of the larynx, palatography for recording

patterns of contact between tongue and palate, glottography for studying the vibration of the

vocal folds and many others. Measurement of airflow from the vocal tract and of air

pressure within it also gives us a valuable indirect picture of other aspects of articulation.

The great majority of experimental research makes use of instrumental phonetic techniques,

though in principle it is possible to carry out reasonably well controlled experiments with no 13

instruments: a classic example is Labov's study of the pronunciation of [ê] in the words

'fourth floor' in New York department stores of different levels of prestige. It is an example

of low-cost research that required only a notebook and pencil. Methods used in auditory

phonetics are those used in experimental psychology.

Phonology has its own inventory of methods. These methods are based on the

procedure of the linguistic analysis and combine information obtained from research done

by phoneticians in other fields of phonetics.