1. Phonetics
Lauren Dobbs

2. What is it? Phonetics is the study of the sounds of speech.
It focuses both on the physical production of the sounds as well as the physiological production.
The study of phonetics first began in 500 B.C. where it mainly studied the articulation of consonants. (modern phonetics didn’t start till 1867)
There are three main sections of phonetics:
Articulator: the vocal structures of the throat that create sound
Acoustic: structure of sounds and how they form words
Auditory: the ear and its relation to creating speech

3. The Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a phonetic system based on the Latin language along with some Greek
The IPA shows how sounds are pronounced in relation to the mouth and throat
The IPA has also been used to create to new written languages

4. Articulator The main focus of articulatory phonetics is articulation
It focuses on the process of turning air into sound
Creating sound is a process of air flow, vocal flow vibration, the articulators, and using the muscles of the throat and diaphragm
There are two types of sound
Periodic: sound produced by vocal fold vibrations and the tongue (vowel)
Aperiodic: sound produced by the oral cavity (consonants)

5. Acoustic
Acoustic phonetics studies properties of sound such as wavelength, duration, and amplitude.
Acoustic studies allowed sounds to be analyzed to determine the differences in vowels.
Through acoustic phonetics periodic and aperiodic sound was discovered
Deals with quality of voice, resonance, intonation, and sound on a spectral level

6. Auditory Auditory phonetics studies how sound is perceived by the ear
It is used to help create hearing aids and is also used when learning a foreign-language
First the fact that sound is occurring is processed then the sound is further analyzed to give meaning to it. Acoustic cues are the main factor.
Babies first distinguish the differences in sounds before the language

7. Phonetics and Knowing
Sounds sound different because everyone speaks differently yet we are able to perceive vowels and consonants as constants.
There are different triggers that give sounds meaning, vowel duration can be a stress.
The resonance of sound varies with the voice and so the brain must process the resonance and then line it up with the rest of the information to identify it.

8. Sources Wikipedia.org citeseerx.ist.edu