НЕДЕЛЯ 5 LECTURE 3. THE STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH SOUNDS What do we mean by phonetics as a science? Phonetics is concerned with the human noises by which the thought is actualised or given audible shape: the nature of these noises, their combinations, and their functions in relation to the meaning. Phonetics studies the sound system of the language, that is segmental phonemes, word stress, syllabic structure and intonation. It is primarily concerned with expression level. However, phonetics is obliged to take the content level into consideration too, because at any stage of the analysis, a considerable part of the phonetician's concern is with the effect which the expression unit he is examining and its different characteristics have on meaning. Only meaningful sound sequences are regarded as speech, and the science of phonetics, in principle at least, is concerned only with such sounds produced by a human vocal apparatus as are, or may be, carriers of organized information of language. Consequently, phonetics is important in the study of language. An understanding of it is a prerequisite to any adequate understanding of the structure or working of language. No kind of linguistic study can be made without constant consideration of the material on the expression level.
It follows from this, that phonetics is a basic branch – many would say the most fundamental branch – of linguistics; neither linguistic theory nor linguistic practice can do without phonetics, and no language description is complete without phonetics, the science concerned with the spoken medium of language. That is why phonetics claims to be of equal importance with grammar and lexicology.
Phonetics has two main divisions; on the one hand, phonology, the study of the sound patterns of languages, of how a spoken language functions as a "code", and on the other, the study of substance, that carries the code.
Before analysing the linguistic function of phonetic units we need to know how the vocal mechanism acts in producing oralspeech and what methods are applied in investigating the material form of the language, that is its substance.
Human speech is the result of a highly complicated series of events. The formation of the concept takes place at a linguistic level, that is in the brain of the speaker; this stage may be called psychological. The message formed within the brain is transmitted along the hervous system to the speech organs. Therefore we may say that the human brain controls the behaviour of the articulating organs which effects in producing a particular pattern of speech sounds. This second stage may be called physiological. The movements of the speech apparatus disturb the air stream thus producing sound waves. Consequently the third stage may be called physical or acoustic. Further, any communication requires a listener, as well as a speaker. So the last stages are the reception of the sound waves by the listener's hearing physiological apparatus, the transmission of the spoken message through the nervous system to the brain and the linguistic interpretation of the information conveyed.
Although not a single one of the organs involved in the speech mechanism is used only for speaking we can, for practical purposes, use the term "organs of speech" in the sense of the organs which are active, directly or indirectly, in the process of speech sound production.
In accordance with their linguistic function the organs of speech may be grouped as follows: