puheentutkimus

Puheentutkimus, also known as phonetics, is the scientific study of human speech sounds. It focuses on the physical properties of speech, including the production, transmission, and perception of speech sounds. Phonetics is distinct from phonology, which studies the abstract mental representations of speech sounds.

The field of phonetics encompasses several sub-disciplines, including articulatory phonetics, which examines how speech sounds are produced using the vocal tract; acoustic phonetics, which studies the physical properties of sound waves produced by the vocal tract; and auditory phonetics, which investigates how the human ear perceives and interprets these sounds.

Key concepts in phonetics include the source-filter theory, which describes how speech sounds are generated by exciting the vocal tract with a sound source (such as vocal fold vibration or a burst of air) and then filtering this sound through the vocal tract; and the place and manner of articulation, which categorize speech sounds based on where they are produced in the vocal tract and how they are produced.

Phonetic research often involves the use of specialized equipment, such as spectrographs, which visualize the frequency and intensity of sound waves, and articulatory imaging techniques, such as MRI or ultrasound, which provide detailed images of the vocal tract during speech production.

Puheentutkimus has applications in various fields, including linguistics, speech-language pathology, speech recognition technology, and forensic phonetics. It plays a crucial role in understanding how humans communicate and in developing technologies that can enhance or restore communication abilities.