PHONETICS

 Prof Abdelhamid Fouda 

PHONETICS

#The_Study_of_Speech_Sounds

Phonetics has been defined as the science of speech sounds. It is a branch of linguistics and deals with the sounds produced by human beings in their speech behaviour. In speaking trial listening a complex of activities is involved : there is the production of speech which is the result of simultaneous activities of several body organs.

These activities are aimed at creating disturbances in the air. The inhaled air acts as source of energy setting the outside air vibrating so that the sound thus generated is carried along to the ears of the listener. The auditory process is set in motion which is again a complicated process involving auditory organs; perception of speech segments which involves discarding the non-significant features from the significant or distinctive features and perceiving only those that are meaningful. ‘Even a single speech sound combines a large number of distinctive features which provide the information on which an auditor bases recognition of the sound’ (Tiffany-Carrell). It is like retrieving a small visual image from a crowd of intricate details. But the brain can quickly decode the incoming signals that have been encoded by the speakers. ‘Physical energy in the form of sensory nerve impulses reaches the brain’, the brain circuitry is understood to organise them into percepts which are the basis of recognition. Obviously, a complex of multiple factors in the form of the listeners’ interest, his social background, intellectual level, pas! experience and other parameters play an active and significant role in the perception level, and the interpretation is made accordingly.

We thus observe that speech act encompasses intricate movements and activities that occur on different planes, some of them simultaneously and at incredible speed. We ate so used to speaking in a natural effortless manner, that we hardly give attention to the complex nature of speech production and speech perception.

Phonetics has three major branches:

1) Articulatory Phonetics

2) Auditory Phonetics

3) Acoustic Phonetics

Articulatory phonetics is also known as physiological phonetics; and auditory phonetics is known by the name perceptual phonetics.

#Articulatory_Phonetics

This branch of phonetics recognises that there is speech producing mechanism in human beings. ‘The ‘apparatus’ that produces speech sounds is situated within the human body. However, it must be clear that there is no separate ‘apparatus’ exclusively used for generating speech sounds. Speech is, infact, an overlaid function in that human beings utilize in a special way organs which are part of the respiratory and digestive system. Man uses those organs for speaking which already serve other biological needs. Thus lips, teeth, tongue, hard palate, soft palate, trachea, lungs - all these organs used in speech production have different basic biological functions. In the process of cultural evolution, man devised ways of utilizing these organs and parts thereof (such as the tip, blade, front, centre, back of the tongue alongwith the corresponding areas or points in the roof of mouth or hard palate) for verbal communication.

Besides( these the airstream that goes in and out of the lungs forms the basis of speech; that is, speech is based en the outgoing airstream. Articulatory phonetics studies how the outgoing airstream is regulated along the vocal tract to form various speech sounds.

#Auditory_Phonetics

This branch of phonetics studies how speech sounds are heard and perceived. This galls for a close study of the psychology of perception on the one hand, and the mechanism of the neuro-muscular circuitry on the other.

Hearing is a very intricate process; it implies ‘interpreting the physical description of actual or proposed signals in terms of the auditory sensations which the signals would create if impressed upon the ear’ (French). Acoustic signals generate a ‘complex chain of physical disturbances within the auditory system’. The brain receives signal about these physical disturbances; in the brain are caused other disturbances - physical counterparts of the sensations. It is necessary to establish correlation between the auditory signals and their interpretation in terms of the disturbances in the brain. It is a challenging task, one can say that not much headway has been made in unravelling the complex pattern of the course charted by the speech signals through the auditory system into the neuro-muscular processes. However, we can divide the whole process into three stages:

i) the physical aspect of die auditory system

ii) recognition of the essential characteristics of hearing.

iii) interpreting auditory sensations, their attributes and their relation to the signals.

The physical aspect of die auditory system involves a detailed description of the external, middle and inner ear (also known as Cochlea),