Sounds of speech, patterns of fusion of sounds, sound combinations - this is all that phonetics studies. This science is a section of one large discipline - linguistics, which explores language as such.
Phonetics Basics
To make it clearer what phonetics is studying, it is enough to imagine the structure of any language. Inside it there is an important connection between internal, oral and written speech. Phonetics is the very science that explores these structures. Important disciplines for her are orthoepy (pronunciation rules) and graphics (writing).
If you add the letter (sign) and its sound into a single picture, you get an important tool of human speech. This is exactly what phonetics studies. In addition, she also studies the material side of pronunciation, that is, those tools that a person uses in his speech. This is the so-called pronunciation apparatus - a set of organs necessary for articulation. Phonetics experts consider the acoustic characteristics of sounds, without which normal communication is impossible.
The advent of phonetics
To understand what phonetics studies, it is also necessary to turn to the history of this science. The first studies on the sound structure of the language appeared among ancient Greek philosophers. The device of speech was interested in Plato, Heraclitus, Aristotle and Democritus. So in the VII century BC. e. Grammar appeared, and with it the phonetic analysis and separation of sounds into consonants and vowels. These were only the prerequisites for the emergence of modern science.
In the Enlightenment, European scientists first wondered about the nature of the formation of sounds. The founder of the acoustic theory of vowel reproduction was the German physician Christian Kratzenstein. The fact that it was doctors who became the pioneers of phonetics is actually not surprising. Their speech studies were physiological. In particular, doctors were interested in the nature of deaf-mute.
In the 19th century, phonetics already studied all world languages. Scientists have developed a comparative historical method of studying linguistics. It consisted in comparing different languages in relation to each other. Thanks to such a phonetic analysis, it was possible to prove that different dialects had common roots. Classifications of languages by large groups and families have appeared. They were based on similarities not only in phonetics, but also in grammar, vocabulary, etc.
Phonetics of the Russian language
So why do you need to study phonetics? The history of its development shows that without this discipline it is difficult to understand the nature of the national language. For example, the phonetics of Russian speech was first investigated by Mikhail Lomonosov.
He was a universal scientist and more specialized in natural science. However, the Russian language has always interested Lomonosov precisely in terms of public speaking. The scientist was a famous rhetorician. In 1755, he wrote Russian Grammar, which explored the phonetic foundations of the Russian language. In particular, the author explained the pronunciation of sounds and their nature. In his research, he used the latest theories of European linguistic science at that time.
International Phonetic Alphabet
In the 18th century, Old World scholars became acquainted with Sanskrit. This is one of the Indian languages. Its remarkableness is that this dialect is one of the most ancient of those existing in human civilization. Sanskrit had Indo-European roots. This attracted the attention of Western researchers.
Soon, using phonetic research, they determined that Indian and European languages have a distant common language. So there was universal phonetics. The researchers set themselves the task: to create a single alphabet in which sounds of all world languages would be captured. An international transcription recording system appeared at the end of the 19th century. It exists and is being supplemented today. With its help it is easy to compare the most distant from each other and dissimilar languages.
Phonetics Sections
Unified phonetic science is divided into several sections. They all study their own aspect of the language. For example, general phonetics explores the patterns that are present in the dialects of all the peoples of the world. Similar surveys make it possible to find their common reference points and roots.
Descriptive phonetics captures the current state of each language. The object of its study is the sound system. Historical phonetics is necessary to track the development and "growing up" of a particular language.
Orthoepy
From the phonetics stood out the science of orthoepy. This is a narrower discipline. What does phonetics and orthoepy study? Scientists specializing in the sciences are researching the pronunciation of words. But if phonetics is devoted to all aspects of the sound nature of speech, then orthoepy is necessary in order to determine the correct way to reproduce words, etc.
Similar studies began as historical. Language is a living organism of its kind. It develops with the people. With each new generation, the language gets rid of unnecessary elements, including pronunciation. So archaisms are forgotten and replaced by new norms. This is exactly what phonetics, graphics, orthoepy studies.
Orthoepic norms
The pronunciation standards in each language were set differently. For example, the unification of the Russian language occurred after the October Revolution. Not only new orthoepic norms appeared, but also grammar. Throughout the 20th century, domestic linguists carefully studied the remnants of the past.
The language in the Russian Empire was very heterogeneous. Orthoepic standards in each region differed from each other. This was due to the large number of dialects. Even in Moscow there was its own dialect. Before the revolution, it was considered the norm of the Russian language, but after several generations it irrevocably changed under the influence of time.
Orthoepy studies such concepts as intonation and stress. The more native speakers, the more likely that a particular group will have their own phonetic norms. They differ from the literary standard in their own variation in the formation of grammatical phonemes. Such unique phenomena are collected and systematized by scientists, after which they end up in special orthoepic dictionaries.
Graphic arts
Another important discipline for phonetics is graphics. It is also called writing. With the help of the installed sign system, the data that a person wants to convey using the language is recorded. At first, humanity communicated only through spoken language, but it had many shortcomings. The main one was the inability to fix their own thoughts so that they could be stored on some physical medium (for example, paper). The advent of writing has changed this situation.
Graphics explores all aspects of this complex sign system. What does the science of phonetics study together with this close discipline? The combination of letters and sounds allowed mankind to create a single system of language with which it communicates. The interconnection of its two important parts (orthoepies and graphics) for each nation has its own. Linguists study them. There is nothing more important to understanding the nature of a language than phonetics and graphics. What does the specialist study in terms of these two systems? Their semantic units are letters and sounds. They are the main objects of study of linguistic sciences.