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What is the difference between Phonetics and Phonology?

(What is the unit of


study of each science? At what level do we find them (langue or parole)? Make a
parallel bearing in mind some other considerations)

Phonetics and Phonology are the two fields dedicated to the study of human speech
sounds and sound structures. The difference between Phonetics and Phonology is that
Phonetics deals with the physical production of these sounds while Phonology is the
study of sound patterns and their meanings both within and across languages.
Here we have a little comparison to help out:

 Phonetics is strictly physical while Phonology also pays attention to the function
or meaning of a sound.
 Phonetics only asks, “Does this sound go here or not?” Phonology asks, “Does
the meaning change if I put this sound here instead of that one?”
 Phonetics makes a pretty general description of sounds and can be used to
describe sounds in any language. Phonology makes very detailed descriptions of
sounds, so each language has its own unique set of symbols (because no two
languages use all of the exact same sounds).

Hopefully that clears things up, but if you need one more way to remember the
difference between phonetics and phonology, look at the word endings. Phonetic ends
the same way as kinetic, which refers to movement. Both are purely physical.
Phonology, like any other -ology, is more of a science, exploring the hows and whys of
the physical.
Provided that the unit of study of each science are :
Phonology is broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of Linguistics concerned with "the
sounds of language".In more narrow terms, "phonology proper is concerned with the
function, behaviour and organization of sounds as linguistic items".

Phonetics is a branch of Linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human
speech. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds (phones): their
physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory perception, and
neurophysiological status. Phonology, on the other hand, is concerned with abstract,
grammatical characterization of systems of sounds.

The distinction between the French words, langue (language or tongue) and parole
(speech), enters the vocabulary of theoretical linguistics with Ferdinand de Saussure’s
Course in General Linguistics, which was published posthumously in 1915 after having
been collocated from student notes. Langue represents the “work of a collective
intelligence,” which is both internal to each individual and collective, in so far as it is
beyond the will of any individual to change. Parole, on the other hand, designates
individual acts, statements and utterances, events of language use manifesting each time
a speaker’s ephemeral individual will through his combination of concepts and his
“phonation”—the formal aspects of the utterance.
At this level we find that when we talk about :
PHONETICS : Science of the speaking sounds (parole), which studies the acoustic and
physiological aspects of these sounds. It studies the real and specific sounds of the
linguistic acts. So, when we speak about phonetics we are talking about PAROLE.

PHONOLOGY : Science of the language sounds (langue), which studies sounds as


functional unities, it means to be, as elements that performs a special linguistic function
(of constitution and distinction of the signs) and not as simples ones . So we have that
when we talk about phonology we are talking about LANGUE.

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