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Linguistics An Essential Introduction

Chapter 3 Phonetics

A key aspect of any language is its physical reality in the world: how we transmit linguistic signals from one person to another. This chapter explores this physical reality by looking at the body parts used for language, how they move to create a linguistic signal, and how linguists categorize, describe, and notate these physical properties so they can record and access information about a language.
When you’ve completed this chapter, you’ll be able to:
  • identify the locations and functions of parts of the human anatomy relevant to the articulation of spoken and signed languages,
  • provide articulatory descriptions of phones, and
  • identify the meanings of many common symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet.