Foneetisch

Foneetisch refers to the study and description of the actual sounds of human speech and the systems used to represent them. In linguistics, foneetisch encompasses articulatory phonetics (how the vocal tract shapes sounds), acoustic phonetics (the physical properties of sound waves), and perceptual phonetics (how listeners interpret sounds). It is distinguished from phonology, which focuses on the abstract system of sound contrasts within a language.

Phonetic transcription is a central tool in foneetisch work. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) provides a comprehensive set of symbols to represent speech sounds across languages. Transcriptions can be broad, capturing only contrastive sounds (phonemes), or narrow, encoding detailed articulatory variants such as allophones. Narrow transcriptions are typically enclosed in square brackets [ ]; broad transcriptions often use slashes / /.

Applications of phonetic analysis include language teaching and learning, lexicography, forensic linguistics, and speech technology, including automatic speech recognition and text-to-speech synthesis. Phonetic data support pronunciation guidance, cross-language comparison, and the study of speech variation and disorder.

See also: phonetics, phonology, IPA, articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonetics, narrow transcription, broad transcription.