Phonetics and Phonology

Catalog description

Introduction to the basic concepts of phonetic and phonological analysis in the world's languages. The aim of this course is to provide students with theoretical and practical skills in the scientific description and explanation of language sound systems. Areas covered include: the production and perception of sounds; the gestural organization of speech and theories of speech perception; the physiological and acoustic description of sounds; the IPA transcription system; and basic principles of phonological contrast, alternation and contrastive feature representation. It also covers applications of phonetics and phonology to other areas of linguistics: typology; sociophonetics; and historical linguistics; and the basics of phonetics and phonology in sign languages.