ATS2669 · Phonetics and phonology: The science of speech sounds

Overview

The study of speech sounds is essential to industries such as: speech recognition and AI; forensic linguistics; speech pathology; education; and more. This unit begins by exploring how the wide variety of sounds of spoken languages around the world are produced in the vocal tract, and how linguists transcribe these sounds using the International Phonetic Alphabet. We then investigate how speech sounds are organised in the mind and are used to convey meaning. Sounds will change depending on where they appear, and this is critical for comprehending and producing speech, as well as processing written forms for reading and spelling (e.g. English ‘p’ is pronounced very differently at the start and the end a word). You may then select from a range of focused modules to apply this foundational knowledge to particular contexts, including: the justice system (forensic phonetics); AI and speech recognition (computational linguistics); child language acquisition (psycholinguistics); language change (historical linguistics); the different sounds of Englishes around the world (world Englishes); race, gender and implicit bias (sociophonetics).

Areas of study: Linguistics and English Language

Offerings

Assessment

The Handbook does not list a final examination among the assessment items. That is not a guarantee there is none.

Within semester assessment: 100%

Assessment details may change. Please refer to the assessment information in Moodle closer to the start of the teaching period.

Requisites

The Handbook lists no prerequisite, corequisite or prohibition for this unit.

Learning outcomes

1. Identify how speech sounds are produced in spoken languages around the world
2. Recognise how speech sounds are represented using the International Phonetic Alphabet;
3. Explore the ways in which the speech sounds of a language vary across time and space or between users;
4. Apply phonetic and phonological insights to practical problems in areas such as forensics, computational linguistics and sociophonetics.

Workload

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.

Student experience, not official rules. Nothing here changes what the Handbook says.