hljóðfræði

hljóðfræði, commonly translated as phonetics in Icelandic, is the branch of linguistics that studies the physical properties of speech sounds. It investigates how sounds are produced, transmitted, and perceived, focusing on the acoustic signal, articulatory movements, and auditory processing. Phonetics is distinct from phonology, which studies the abstract sound systems and rules of a language. In Icelandic usage, hljóðfræði encompasses the study of pronunciation norms and the phonetic inventory of the language, and is foundational for language teaching and dialect research.

The field is traditionally divided into articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonetics, and auditory phonetics. Articulatory phonetics analyzes how the vocal tract shapes sounds, using articulators such as the tongue, lips, velum, and vocal folds. Acoustic phonetics describes the sound signal in terms of frequency, amplitude, and formants. Auditory phonetics studies how listeners perceive and categorize sounds, including psychoacoustic phenomena.

Methods and tools: Researchers use spectrograms, waveform analysis, and acoustic measurements, as well as imaging and motion-tracking technologies (ultrasound, MRI, electromagnetic articulography) to study articulatory patterns. Transcription often uses the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA); phonetic data can be bracketed [ ] for broad or narrow transcription.

Applications: hljóðfræði informs language teaching, speech therapy and clinical assessment, voice medicine, speech recognition, forensic phonetics, language documentation, and technology design (text-to-speech and automatic transcription). The field supports cross-language comparisons and advances our understanding of how speech sounds are produced, transmitted, and perceived.