Definition
Phonetics is the study of human vocal sounds, and linguistic phonetics is the study of those sounds that are used in speech. Some authors use the term “phonetics” to refer only to the study of speech sounds, but the study of nonspeech vocal sounds such as infant cries, coughs, and singing can employ many of the same methods as are used in linguistic phonetics even though speech per se is not involved.
There are many aspects to the study of phonetics, but three main ways of investigating it are by using perceptual methods, acoustic methods, or instrumentation. Perceptual methods involve the auditory analysis of speech or vocal sounds, using either live or recorded stimuli. Since much research concerns the intelligibility, comprehensibility, or other type of impression of the vocal sound on another human, perceptual methods are considered the most ecologically valid. However, the human speech perceptual system is noted for its biases, many gained through experience with...
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Chenausky, K. (2017). Phonetics. In: Volkmar, F. (eds) Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6435-8_534-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6435-8_534-3
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