Okuzeka
Linguistics & Grammar vocabulary · Phonetics and Phonology

Phonetics

Meaning in linguistics & grammar, with examples

/fəˈnetɪks/nounCore term

In linguistics & grammar, phonetics means: The branch of linguistics that studies speech sounds as physical events: how the mouth and throat produce them, how they travel and how the ear perceives them.

In Turkish: sesbilgisi, fonetik

How it is used

Found in course titles and textbooks; its three main areas are articulatory, acoustic and auditory phonetics. It takes a singular verb. Teachers use phonetic symbols from the IPA to show pronunciation.

Example sentences

  1. In the phonetics lab we recorded our own vowels and measured them in Praat.

  2. Articulatory phonetics explains why /θ/ is hard for many Turkish learners.

Common collocations

  • articulatory phonetics
  • acoustic phonetics
  • phonetic transcription
  • phonetic symbol
  • phonologyThe study of how a particular language organizes its sounds into a system: which sound differences change meaning, how sounds combine and how they affect each other.
  • IPAShort for International Phonetic Alphabet: a set of symbols in which each symbol stands for one speech sound, used to write down pronunciation in any language.
  • vowelA speech sound made with the air flowing freely through the mouth, without the tongue or lips blocking it, such as the sounds in see, cat and boot.
  • consonantA speech sound made by partly or completely blocking the air in the mouth or throat, such as /p/, /s/ or /m/; also a letter that usually spells such a sound.
  • place of articulationThe point in the mouth or throat where the airflow is blocked or narrowed to make a consonant, such as the two lips for /p/ or the teeth for /θ/.

More terms: Phonetics and Phonology

Practise with graded reading

Reading at the right level is the fastest way to make new words stick. Pick free English books by level: