Phonetics

Catalog description

This course explores the repertory of sounds found in human language. As a field of study, phonetics includes three areas: (a) articulatory phonetics (how humans create speech sounds); (b) acoustic phonetics (how sounds are transmitted through the air); and (c) perceptual phonetics (how humans perceive sounds based on changes in air pressure). In this class we will focus primarily on the first area, along with an introduction to the second. To this end we will examine the anatomy of the human vocal tract to understand how speech sounds are created. We will also study the International Phonetic Association (IPA) transcription alphabet, create broad and narrow transcriptions, and practice producing and classifying sounds of various world languages. Time will also be spent on prosodic characteristics of human speech, including pitch, stress, tempo, and loudness. Finally, we will discuss how the study of phonetics is applied within fields such as Speech-Language Pathology (SLP), Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), or teaching languages (e.g., Mandarin, French, Japanese, etc.). This course is open to student from all academic majors. This course counts for a major elective course toward the Autism Behavior Studies major, the Autism Studies minor, and IHS Area Studies.