Phonology, Phonetics, Phonemics, phone, Phoneme, and Allophone ~ English Phonology

1. Phonology

The term phonology can be used in the wide sense of the word. When used in this way, phonology covers phonetics and phonemics. This is in accord with what Francis (1958:30-31) says that phonology is a cover term embracing phonetics and phonemics. This is also in accord with what Akmajian, Demers, and Harnish (1984:99) say that phonology is the subfield of linguistics that studies the structure and systematic patterning of sounds in human language. Part of phonology involves an investigation of how speech sounds are produced (articulated) in the vocal tract (an area known as articulatory phonetics), as well as the study of the physical properties of the speech sound-waves generated by the vocal tract (an area known as acoustic phonetics). Whereas the term phonetics usually refers to the study of the articulatory and acoustic properties of sounds, the term phonology is often used to refer to the abstract rules and principles that govern the distribution of sounds in a language.

In the narrow sense of the word, phonology refers to phonemics, that is, the branch of linguistics which studies the ways in which speech sounds form systems and patterns in human language (Fromkin and Rodman, 1983:71).

2. Phonetics

According to Crystal (1980:267), phonetics is the science which studies the characteristics of human sound-making, especially those sounds in speech, and provided methods for their description, classification and transcription, Three branches of the subject are generally recognized:

1. Articulatory phonetics is the study of the way speech sounds are made (articulated) by the vocal organs;

2. Acoustic phonetics studies the physical properties of speech sounds, as transmitted between mouth and ear;

3. Auditory phonetics studies the perceptual response to speech sounds, as mediated by ear, auditory nerve and brain.

According to O'Grady and Dobrovolsky (1989:13), phonetics is the study of the inventory and structure of the sounds of language. There are two ways of approaching phonetics. One way studies the physiological mechanism of speech production. This is known as articulated phonetics. The other, known as acoustic phonetics deals with the physics of speech sounds. It examines the physical properties of speech sounds as they are determined and measured by machines, and attempts to deduce the acoustic basis of speech production and perception. Francis (1958:57) further states that there are three branches of phonetics: articulatory phonetics, which deals with speech production, auditory phonetics, which deals with speech reception, and acoustic phonetics, which deals with speech transmission.

3. Phonemics

Francis (1958:30) defines phonemics as a branch of linguistics whose subject matter is the organization of phones into groups or families, called phonemes, whose members are the significant sounds of speech, According to Pike (1968:246), phonemics is the study of the structural arrangement of sound segments in relation to units of sound in particular languages; procedures for the finding of the phonemes of a language; the theoretical problems concerned with the setting up of phonemic postulates.

4. Phone, Phoneme, and Allophone

Concerning the distinction between these three concepts, Crystal (1980:265) states that phone is a term used in phonetics to refer to the smallest perceptible discrete segment of sound in a stream of speech. From the viewpoint of segmental phonology, phones are the physical realizations of phonemes; phonic variants of a phoneme are referred to as allophones; and phoneme is the minimal unit in the sound system of a language. Francis (1958:589-594) distinguishes these three concepts by stating that allophone is a class of identical speech sounds which is one of a group making up a phoneme; phone is a unique minimal segment of the stream of speech; and phoneme is a group of phone-types (allophones) which are phonetically similar and either in complementary distribution or free variation.