Phonetics studies the sounds present in speech, in their acoustic and physiological aspects. Meanwhile, phonology studies sound patterns in specific languages.
Both are branches of science that study the sonority.
| Phonetics | Phonology | |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Phonetics is the study of the acoustics and physiology of speech production, perception, and sounds. It analyzes sounds in their concrete realization, in the way consonants and vowels are pronounced. |
Phonology is the study of phonemes, the sound patterns of a language. |
| Minimum unit of study | The sound of speech, the sound produced by humans. | The sound of a language, the phoneme. |
| object of analysis | Analyzes the substance of expression. | Analyze the form of expression. |
What is phonetics?
Phonetics involves the use of acoustic measures, in particular spectrograms or articulatory measures, to characterize the sounds emitted by humans during speech.
For example, when someone pronounces the word "diet", phonetics will analyze how the consonant /d/ will be pronounced: /dj/. That is, this study analyzes how vowels and consonants are pronounced.
the phonetic transcription
Phonetic transcription is the formalized method of transcribing the sounds of different languages, and approaches the standard way in which a given phoneme should be pronounced.
For example, in Portuguese, the phonetic transcription of the letter f is [′ɛfi], while the English transcription will be [ɛf].
What is phonology?
Phonology involves trying to grammatically formalize sound patterns, as well as explaining and understanding how grammars can differ between languages.
Phonology studies the way sounds are organized in a language, such as syllabic structure, accents and intonations.
See also the differences between:
- Phoneme and Letter
- Speech, language and language
- Formal language and informal language