What does phonetics and orthoepy study? Why do I need to study phonetics?

The sounds of speech, the regularities of the fusion of sounds, sound combinations are all that phonetics learns. This science is a division of one great discipline - linguistics, which explores the language as such.

Fundamentals of phonetics

To make it clearer that studying phonetics, it is enough to imagine the device of any language. Inside it there is an important connection between internal, oral and written speech. Phonetics is the same science that explores these constructions. Important disciplines for it are orthoepia (pronunciation rules) and graphics (writing).

If you combine a letter (sign) into a single picture and its sound, you will get an important tool of human speech. This is exactly what phonetics is studying. In addition, she also explores the material aspect of pronunciation, that is, the tools that a person uses in his speech. This is the so-called pronouncing apparatus - the totality of the organs necessary for articulation. Specialists in phonetics consider the acoustic characteristics of sounds, without which normal communication is impossible.

Appearance of phonetics

To understand what phonetics is studying, it is also necessary to turn to the history of this science. The first studies devoted to the sound structure of language appeared in the environment of ancient Greek philosophers. The device of speech was interested in Plato, Heraclitus, Aristotle and Democritus. So in the VII century BC. E. There was a grammar, and along with it, a phonetic analysis and separation of sounds into consonants and vowels. These were only the prerequisites for the birth of modern science.

In the Age of Enlightenment, European scientists first asked about the nature of sound formation. The founder of the acoustic theory of vowel reproduction was the German doctor Christian Kratsenshtein. The fact that it was the physicians who became the pioneers of phonetics is in fact not surprising. Their speech studies were of a physiological nature. In particular, doctors were interested in the nature of deaf-and-mute.

In the XIX century, phonetics already studied all the world's languages. Scientists have developed a comparative-historical method of studying linguistics. It consisted of comparing different languages with respect to each other. Thanks to this phonetic analysis, it was possible to prove that different adverbs had common roots. Classifications of languages by large groups and families have emerged. They were based on similarities not only in phonetics, but also in grammar, vocabulary, etc.

Phonetics of the Russian language

So why do we 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 studied by Mikhail Lomonosov.

He was a universal scientist and more specialized in natural science. However, Russian language has always interested Lomonosov in terms of public speaking. The scientist was a famous rhetorician. In 1755 he wrote "Russian Grammar", in which the phonetic foundations of the native language were studied. In particular, the author explained the pronunciation of sounds and their nature. In his study he used the latest at the time theories of European linguistic science.

International phonetic alphabet

In the XVIII century, scientists of the Old World met with Sanskrit. This is one of the Indian languages. His noteworthy is that this dialect is one of the oldest of the existing in human civilization. Sanskrit had Indo-European roots. This attracted the attention of Western researchers.

Soon, with the help of phonetic research, they determined that Indian and European languages have a distant common language. So there was a universal phonetics. The researchers set a goal: to create a single alphabet, in which the sounds of all world languages were captured. The international system of recording transcription appeared at the end of the XIX century. It exists and is supplemented today. With its help it is easy to compare the most distant from each other and unlike languages.

Sections of phonetics

Unified phonetic science is divided into several sections. All of them study their aspect of language. For example, general phonetics examines the patterns that are present in the dialects of all the peoples of the world. Such investigations allow us 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 for tracing the development and "maturation" of a particular language.

Orthoepy

From phonetics, the science of orthoepia was singled out . This is a narrower discipline. What does phonetics and orthoepy study? Scientists specializing in the sciences, explore 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 of reproducing words, etc.

Similar studies began as historical. Language is in its own way a living organism. It develops with the people. With each new generation, language gets rid of unnecessary elements, including pronunciation. So archaisms are forgotten and replaced by new norms. This is exactly what studies phonetics, graphics, orthoepia.

Orthoepic norms

The norms of pronunciation in each language were set differently. For example, the unification of the Russian language occurred after the October Revolution. There were not only new orthoepic norms, but also grammar. Throughout the 20th century, domestic linguists have carefully studied the vestiges that have remained in the past.

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 language. Before the Revolution, he was considered the norm of the Russian language, but after several generations he changed irrevocably under the influence of time.

Orthoepy studies such concepts as intonation and stress. The more speakers of the language, it is more likely that the individual group will have their own phonetic norms. They differ from the literary standard by their own variation in the formation of grammatical phonemes. Such unique phenomena are collected and systematized by scientists, after which they fall into special orthoepic dictionaries.

Graphic arts

Another important discipline for phonetics is graphics. It is also called writing. With the help of the established sign system, the data that a person wants to transmit using the language are recorded. At first, humanity communicated only through oral speech, but it had many shortcomings. The main of them was the inability to fix their own thoughts so that they could remain on some physical medium (for example, paper). The appearance of writing changed this situation.

Graphics explore all aspects of this complex sign system. What does science study phonetics along with this discipline close to it? The combination of letters and sounds allowed humanity to create a unified system of language, with which it communicates. The relationship of its two important parts (orthoepia and graphics) for each people has its own. Linguists study them. To understand the nature of the language, nothing is more important than phonetics and graphics. What does the expert learn from the point of view of these two systems? Their semantic units are letters and sounds. They are the main objects of study of linguistic sciences.