Fonètiques

Fonètiques, or phonetics, is the branch of linguistics that studies the physical aspects of speech sounds. It concerns how sounds are produced by the vocal organs, how they propagate through air, and how they are received by the ear. Phonetics is generally divided into three main subfields: articulatory phonetics (production of sounds by the vocal tract), acoustic phonetics (properties of sound waves), and perceptual phonetics (how sounds are perceived and interpreted).

Phonetics provides the empirical basis for phonology and interacts with other disciplines such as audiology and speech science. It uses standardized notation, most notably the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), to describe sounds across languages. Data are gathered with instruments and methods like spectrography, electroglottography, ultrasound imaging of the vocal tract, and perceptual listening tests.

Applications of phonetics include language teaching, speech therapy, forensic linguistics, speech recognition and synthesis, and linguistic research. The field has a long historical development beginning in the 19th century with the standardization of IPA; modern phonetic work combines experimental methods with digital technologies to document and analyze speech sounds in diverse languages.