What’s in a Word?

What is the basic building block of language? If you asked that question to 100 people it wouldn’t be surprising if the most common reply was “words”. In many cases we tend to think in term of a hierarchy of words, sentences, paragraphs - an almost automatic default which equates language with written language.

In fact language is built on sound. We learn our own language initially by forming sounds and developing speech and it is only when we have acquired that skill that we then develop our language ability by learning to read and write.

That’s where phonetics and phonology come into play - my least favourite aspect of linguistics, mainly because I’ve always struggled with them - but an essential part of language nonetheless. So every once and a while I’ll post a basic term along with a definition just to keep you - and me- up to date with the basics of the topic. Here’s the first one:

Phonetics: the scientific study of how speech sounds are produced, how they are used in spoken language and how those sounds are represented. This involves an examination of how we produce and classify speech sounds.

If you have a simpler definition, or an easier way of remembering what phonetics is all about, please leave a comment and share your knowledge.