24. Phonetics as science, branches, methods

P studies the spoken aspect of language, its subject is a scientific analysis of the entire system of oral means of expressing thoughts & emotions of the speaker.

There are 3 aspects of P: articulatory (physiological), acoustic & functional (social).

1) Articulatory A. From the articulatory point of view every speech sound is a complex of definite movements & positions of various organs of speech. g The branch of P which studies the articulatory aspect of speech sounds is called articulatory P. 2) Acoustic A. From the acoustic or physical point of view a speech sound is a physical phenomenon characterized by certain acoustic properties (pitch, the voice quality, the intensity, the temporal component). The branch of P, which studies the acoustic aspect of speech sounds, is called acoustic P / experimental P. 3) Functional A (Phonology). The branch of P which studies purely linguistic aspect of speech sounds is phonology. It deals with the analysis of the semantic functions of the phonemes, syllables, stress and intonation. The phonetic system of a language includes the following components:

1) the system of its phonemes occurring in words in the form of allophones;

2) syllabic structure;3) accentual structure of words;4) intonation.Phonetics itself is divided into 2 major components: segmental phonetics, which is concerned with individual sounds, and suprasegmental phonetics, which studies the larger units of connected speech: syllables, words, phrases, intonation.

2. Phoneme.

There aren’t any satisfactory definitions of the P from all points of view. The difficulty of giving such a definition lies in the fact that the phoneme has several aspects and functions, it is actually impossible to devise a formula or a formal definition in a single sentence that would reflect all these functions and aspects.

The majority of Russian linguists accept prof. Vasilyev's definition, according to which "the P is the smallest language unit that exists in the speech of all the members of a given language community as such speech sounds which are capable of distinguishing one word from another".As it comes from the definition "the phoneme is a dialectical unity of three aspects”:1) Articulatory A. From the articulatory point of view every speech sound is a complex of definite movements and positions of various organs of speech. 2) Acoustic A. From the acoustic or physical point of view a speech sound is a physical phenomenon characterized by certain acoustic properties (pitch, the voice quality, the intensity, the temporal component). 3) Functional A. deals with the analysis of the semantic functions of the phonemes.In speech the P serves to perform three functions: a) constitutive which helps to constitute the material forms of sounds, words, phrases and sentences; b) distinctive, because sounds help to distinguish words & phrases c) recognitive: its allophones help to recognize words and consequently phrases and sentences.