Phonetics studies the phenomena involved in the production of sounds.
The Greek word phōnḗ , which can be translated as "voice" or "sound" , derived from phōnētikós . This term , in turn, gave rise in modern Latin to phoneticus .
speech sounds
The idea came to our language as phonetics , which can be used as an adjective or as a noun. According to the first meaning mentioned by the Royal Spanish Academy ( RAE ) in its dictionary, the concept allows us to refer to what is linked to the sounds of speech .
Phonetics, in this framework, can refer to the sounds of a language . Take the case of a Spanish actor who does not understand the English language but nevertheless plays a character in an English- speaking film. The artist memorizes and repeats what he has to say phonetically: that is, by its sound, although without knowing the meaning.
It is also common for actors to take phonetics classes to improve their pronunciation before their performances, even if they must speak the same language. In some cases, this helps them to represent a different accent, since for an accurate performance they cannot rely on general rules but must thoroughly learn all its particularities.
In the field of lyrical singing, learning foreign languages is almost mandatory for the majority, since the repertoires usually include works in Italian, French, German and English, among others. Here phonetics has an added difficulty, because it must adapt to the placement of the song in the different regions of the voice: it is not the same to pronounce a word in the central register as in the upper register, for example.
In linguistics
In the field of linguistics , phonetics is the branch of grammar focused on the analysis of the processes that allow the production, transmission and perception of sound signals that form speech . In phonetics it is possible to distinguish between acoustic phonetics , articulatory phonetics and auditory phonetics .
It can be stated that the sender, resorting to articulatory phonetics, encodes his message. The receiver, meanwhile, decodes it through auditory phonetics. Acoustic phonetics, finally, is associated with the transmission channel .
Acoustic phonetics
Acoustic phonetics, associated with physics , is oriented to the characteristics of the sound wave that is transmitted through a channel. It relies on science to measure these waves, which travel through the air during speech.
Phonemes have associated articulatory features; Sounds, on the other hand, are associated with acoustic-type features, so that we have vocalic or non-vocalic, nasal or oral, low or high-pitched, compact or diffuse, and consonantal or non-consonantal sounds, among others. For this measurement, spectrograms are used, which reflect the various formants into which sound can be decomposed.
Sound perception is the focus of auditory phonetics.
Articulatory phonetics
Articulatory phonetics, for its part, appears in the construction of the message by the sender who produces the sounds. It focuses on the physiological aspect of sounds, on the work of the organs that participate in their production, studying the different possibilities that exist according to their position and the path that the air travels during phonation.
Auditory phonetics
Auditory phonetics, finally, analyzes how the sound wave behaves inside the ear and how the receiver interprets what it perceives. Due to its characteristics, this branch of phonetics is also known as perceptual . Although we usually associate phonetics with the production of sound, it would be useless if only that aspect existed. Something similar can be said about light and darkness, nothingness and everything: they are concepts that necessarily complement each other.