Linguistics is the subject that study languages, the general umbrella concept is linguistic but within

linguistics we have differeten branches and subjects that describes languages from a different point of view.
Pragmatics: languages in the real world.
Semantics: meaning of the words.
Grammar: focus on sentences.
Our focus is Phonetics and Phonology.
Phonetics study the sounds of the language, specific sounds that are important and meaningful.
PHONEMES are the smallest meaningful unit of sound. Sometimes these phonemes change a little bit,
when we are in different parts of the same word.
Allophone: variation of a phoneme. the phoneme L has three different allophones.
Sounds: disturbance of the air.
Auditory phonetics: studies how we hear the language
Articulatory phonetics: how we articulate, how we move the organs of the speech to produce sounds.
The speech mechanism, wich parts of our bodies are used to produce language.
The origin is the lungs, they are the center, where everything starts. And it goes through the larynx, is the
connection that goes to the lungs to your mouth, the larynx is in the neck; The larynx's structure is made of
two large cartilages. These are hollow and are attached to the top of the trachea; when we breathe, the air
passes through the trachea and the larynx. The front of the larynx comes to a point and you can feel this
point at the front of your neck - particularly if you are a man and/or slim. This point is commonly called the
Adam's Apple. it has several parts, and withing the larynx we have the vocal folds.
Vocal folds, are two flaps of tissue, are tense within the larynx united by the bottom by a cartilage,
acording on how they behave we are going to have voice or voiceless sound.
Pharynx: a tube that begins in the larynx, is longer in men than in women, from the pharynx the air goes
either into the mouth or through the nose.
In the mouth, the organs in it are gonna change the air producing a sound, and we produce oral sounds. If
it goes through the nose, we produce nasal sounds.
Air is the raw material (materia prima) that we need to produce sounds
Activators: Lungs
Resonators (changes the quality of the sound) - pharynx
Articulators: mouth, they move. We can have passive or active articulators - passive, they dont move, like
our palates, our teeth. Active articulators: lips, tongue.
Lips: upper and lower
Teeth: upper and lower
Tongue: the tip, the blade, the front and the back, and the root.
Palate: alveolar ridge, the hard palate, soft palate, uvula.
 Sound is gonna variate depending which articulator we use. Acoustic phonetics: how the sounds move
through the air and how the air moves through the sounds. Phonology studies how the sounds are organized
in specific languages.
Consonants go in the edges of a syllables and vocals in the middle. The word stress, extra strength,
loudness, force and
Accents: a different pronuntiation, a different entonation on the same language. it’s related to the
pronuntiation.
Received pronunciation: the accent used for the BBC, a very tidy accent, typical of the south of england,
near london, the accent that the queen used. Was the accent used at university level.
Dialect: differences in grammar, in words, apart from the pronuntiation, word order.
International english: focuses on people understanding you, not that much on being perfect
Language: discuss sounds and phonemes (visual representation of that sound)
Sounds: vowels and consonants
Vowels: in the production of vowels theres no contact between the articulators, as theres no contact we are
going to describe the vowels acoording to the part of the mouth where they resonate. Place of resonance:
front, central and back, and how high te tongue is: closed, mid and open
Consonants: there is some contact between the articulators, and we classify them acording to place of
articulation: bilabial sounds, labiodental sounds, dental, alveolar sounds, post alveolar, palatal sounds, velar
sounds <- Adjectives to describe sounds.
Manner of articulation: how we are going to pronounce it, plosive sounds, fricative sounds, affricate
sounds, nasal sounds. We describe consonants using this classifications.