Pronunciation

Pronunciation is the system of sounds used to produce and perceive speech in a language or dialect. It includes the articulation of consonants and vowels (segmental features) and the use of pitch, stress, rhythm, and intonation (suprasegmental features). Pronunciation is distinguished from orthography and from the abstract ideas of phonology; it concerns actual spoken realization, which may differ across speakers who share a language.

Phonetics and phonology study pronunciation. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) provides a standard set of symbols to transcribe sounds; phonetic transcription can be broad (phoneme level) or narrow (allophones). Acoustic methods analyze frequency, duration, and amplitude; listeners judge intelligibility and accent. Pronunciation involves articulation (place and manner of articulation, voicing), coarticulation, and prosody, including stress, rhythm, and intonation contours.

Variation and learning. Pronunciation varies with dialect, sociolect, age, gender, and exposure. Language contact can introduce new sounds or reduce contrasts. In second-language learning, goals range from intelligibility to social accommodation; teaching methods emphasize segment accuracy and prosody. Assessments may be perceptual or use acoustic measures. While standard varieties exist in education and media, many communities value local accents as legitimate phonological systems.