What's the difference between phonetics and phonology?

Having practiced armchair linguistics for some years I should be able to sum up the difference
off the top of my head, yet often I don't know which term to use.

And looking them up on Wikipedia doesn't help a lot...

Wikipedia on phonology:
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with "the sounds of
language".
Wikipedia on phonetics:
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech.
Can it be that the difference is that phonology deals with language sounds and phonetics deals
with human speech sounds? And if so, well what does that mean?

Phonetics is about the physical aspect of sounds, it studies the production and the
perception of sounds, called phones. Phonetics has some subcategories, but if not
specified, we usually mean "articulatory phonetics": that is, "the study of the
production of speech sounds by the articulatory and vocal tract by the speaker".
Phonetic transcriptions are done using the square brackets, [ ].
Phonology is about the abstract aspect of sounds and it studies
the phonemes (phonemic transcriptions adopt the slash / /). Phonology is about
establishing what are the phonemes in a given language, i.e. those sounds that can
bring a difference in meaning between two words. A phoneme is a phonic segment
with a meaning value, for example in minimal pairs:
1. bat - pat
2. had - hat
Or in Italian:

1. pèsca -> /ɛ/ = Peach (the fruit)

2. pésca -> /e/ = Fishing (the activity)

3 Ah I think one thing that keeps me confusing them is terms like "phonetic transcription" which
often deal in phonemes but phonemes belong to phonology and not phonetics \-: – hippietrail S
15 '11 at 23:30
2 I added that part to the answer, it looked better there. :) By the way, I think this is one of the th
that every student studying Linguistics have wondered about. – Alenanno♦ Sep 15 '11 at 23:48
Actually, a phonetic transcription should just deal with "phones" not "phonemes" - which belo
to phonemic transcription. But that probably doesn't make it too much clearer! – LaurenG Sep
'11 at 1:01
1 Yes when people want to contrast phonetic and phonemic transcriptions they use the right term
But otherwise phonetic transcription is naively used to cover both so it's more vague or ambig
Think phrasebooks, non-linguists talking about languages in online forums etc. – hippietrail S
'11 at 8:31
 add a comment
up My advisor, Dennis Preston, used to tell students that the ear hears phonetics, but the
vote16do brain hears phonology. That is, your ear is capable of processing whatever linguistic
wn vote sounds are given to it (assuming someone with normal hearing), but your language
experience causes your brain to filter out only those sound patterns that are
important to your language(s).

Of course, this summary simplifies things considerably. Phonologists are often as

interested in patterns related to the manner of articulation as they are the patterns of
the speech waves. Phoneticians, meanwhile, would have no way to analyze their
data sets if they didn't have phonological categories to help organize them.

Generally, phonetics is the study of fine grained details of those sounds, while
phonology has traditionally dealt with analysis of greater abstractions. For
understandable reasons, the line between the two discipliens is blurring, particularly
as our modeling capabilities become more sophisticated. Still, the distinction is
useful.

shareimprove this answer answered Oct 6 '11 at 14:30

Ocumpaugh
30113
add a comment
up I think the big difficulty with the phonetics-phonology divide is not only that
vote14do linguists don't even really agree on the difference but also that there doesn't exist a
wn vote good analogy with any other pair of subfields.
This is the way I've seen it (cards on the table, although there are more extreme
folks, I'm fairly far on the "phonology doesn't exist" camp, and that is probably
influencing my answers)...

Phonology is the study of the cognitive processes that turn words into instructions
to hand down to the physical body parts that produce the sounds. These instructions,
personified into human commands, might sound like, "close your lips, now move
your tongue to touch your alveolar ridge; begin lowering the diaphragm at a normal
rate and constrict the vocal chords to this degree". On the acoustic side, phonology's
role is much harder to specify (at least to me), but I would say that the "phonology"
center takes in sequences/matricies of interpreted linguistic features, for example
"between 442-488ms, palatalization level 2". Phonology would then turn that into
the abstract "underlying" representations that can be mapped to morphological
parsers and the lexicon.
Phonetics is the study of how the "commands" end up translating into specific
articulator and vocal tract movements. For instance, how the command to retract the
tongue at some particular time "really" maps to minute physical details like exactly
when tongue section X touches mouth section Y and then in turn how that affects
parts of the resultant acoustic signal. Phonetics also makes observations of how
certain groups of instructions can cause very specific consequences. On the acoustic
side, phonetics turns the mental spectrogram we receive from the nerve endings in
our cochleas into feature sets and timings of the sort that it received from the
phonological center during articulation.
 Articulatory phonology is an attempt to consolidate the two, that, as far as I can
tell, is basically phonetics taken one level deeper to receive underlying segments as
inputs. And articulatory phonology moves a lot of what was in phonology proper as
cognitive processes into physically motivated processes during articulation.
In short, nobody really knows the difference, but the broad agreement is that
phonetics is lower-level and more articulator-centric and phonology is higher-level
and more cognition-centric.

shareimprove this answer answered Sep 15 '11 at 23:05

Steven Xu
1,4191216
add a comment
up Firstly it should be pointed out that there is some overlap between these two
vote9dow subdisciplines of linguistics, just as there is overlap between, say, syntax and
n vote morphology. But you're not far from the right track when you say:

"the difference is that phonology deals with language sounds and phonetics deals
with human speech sounds..."
This is close, but it doesn't encapsulate the distinction memorably. I suggest the
following approximation:

 Phonology: how sounds pattern within a given language (stated in terms of

"phonemes")
 Phonetics: the characteristics of speech sounds (stated with descriptions of
speech those sounds, sometimes referred to as "phones") themselves
Crucially, a phoneme consists of a set of phones, plus a set of rules describing how
those phones are distributed within a particular language.
So, if we refer to a "voiced palatal affricate" [dʒ] without context, we are describing
a "phone" -- a speech sound which is produced through a particular combination of
articulations.

However, if we make a statement like "In Japanese, the phoneme /d/ has the
allophone [dʒ] before the vowel /i/," then we are describing the patterning of phones
in Japanese. Thus, this is a phonological description.

Note that how a particular phone patterns may be different in another language.

In English, for instance, "deep" [diːp] and "Jeep" [dʒiːp] are distinct terms, so while
the phones in question here are comparable (roughly) to those in the Japanese case,
the patterning is different.

However, and this is where it gets a bit messy, it's usually the case that there are
purely phonetic (articulatory or auditory) influences that "motivate" particular
phonological distributions. In fact the example from Japanese above is of a sort
that's quite common cross-linguistically, so much so that it's been given its own
name, "palatalization." So, phonology can often be "explained" in terms of
phonetics.
 Both of these subdisciplines have huge literatures and of course I'm grossly
oversimplifying, but hopefully that is a useful start.

shareimprove this answer edited Sep 15 '11 at 23:40 community wiki

2 revs
pat
Is ぢ still rendered /di/? (I know it is in Nihon-shiki romanization). Then how about ディ, which
pronounced differently? There has been a phonemic split. – dainichi Jan 29 '12 at 9:17
This is the first correct answer I've read yet—thanks! – John Peyton Feb 4 '14 at 0:18
add a comment
up Phonetics deals with sounds. Phonology deals with phonemes. What is a phoneme?
vote9do Ah, that's one of the things phonology deals with. Nikolai Trubetskoy defined it as
wn vote “the smallest distinctive unit within the structure of a given language”. Now, what
does that mean?
For example in English if someone says [riŋ], you will understand ring, even
if you pronounce it [ɹiŋ]. So we can consider that the differences
between [r] and [ɹ] are not distinctive. Thus, we call [r] and [ɹ] unbound variants
of a phoneme /r/.
Now if someone says [piŋ] it has a different meaning : it's ping. So [p] is not a
realisation of /r/, but rather of another phoneme /p/.
This process is the most obvious way of finding the phonemes of an arbitrary
language, and [riŋ]and [piŋ] what we call a minimal pair. A pair of words different
only for one sound, but with distinct meanings.
As you have probably guessed it's a bit more complicated, but that's the bulk of it.

Now why bother with phonemes? Why aren't sounds relevant enough?

It is a matter of abstraction, convenience. Though interesting, phonetic systems of

languages often lack obvious patterns. Studying them is tedious, and subject to bias.
And there are many topics in linguistics that don't demand such precision.

Phonological systems, though present many regularities, are far easier to formalise,
and in fields such as morphology, semantics or pragmatics, they are just precise
enough. There is no need to know if one says ring [riŋ] or [ɹiŋ] if they bear the
same meaning.
So there are differences, these two fields don't address the same issues, though they
are closely related. And both are useful.

shareimprove this answer edited Sep 16 '11 at 7:56 answered Sep 15 '11 at 23:33

Evpok
480410
add a comment
up An additional answer would be that phonetics is concerned with the physical
vote6do processes of speech (production, processing) while phonology is concerned with
wn vote abstractly modeling speech processes. There is a lot of overlap between the two areas
 and it is difficult at times to figure out if a process should be considered phonetic (a
physical result) or phonological (basically a rule that is not physically necessary).

An example of this is something like voicing assimilation. Say you have two words
which in isolation sound like:

[ap] [ga]
And you put them together:

/ap+ga/
And the resulting sound is:

[abga]
The [p] became [b]. Why? A phonological answer could be that /g/ has some feature
controlling its voicing [+voice] and /p/ has a feature [-voice] making it voiceless.
Then putting them adjacent, the /p/ latches on to /g/'s [+voice] feature and let's go of
it's [-voice] feature, making it a voiced /p/ ([b]).

A phonetic answer could be something like, in anticipation of the voicing for

producing [g] you also voice somewhat during a production of [p], making it more
[b]-like.

shareimprove this answer edited Jan 15 '12 at 15:14 answered Sep 21 '11 at 18:08

Alenanno♦ acousticwug
6,80442666 1311
add a comment
up This is an example I always find is helpful for first year. Ignore the vowels just for
vote5do now, and just focus on the 'p' sounds. If I were doing a phonetic transcription of
wn vote English notice how all the 'p' sounds are different and they've got slightly different
diacritics to show this:
[pʰin] 'pin' - notice it's aspirated! [spin] 'spin' - notice it's not aspriated! [stop̚] 'stop' -
notice that you didn't actually open your mouth at the end.

I use those square brackets to show it's phonetic - it's the sounds as they really and
objectively are. But that's not how English speakers really think of them - they don't
think of these sounds being different, they all just think of them as 'p.' to show this we
just write them all as /p/ and use angle brackets to show that people think of them all
as the one sound - /pin/, /spin/ and /stop/.

shareimprove this answer answered Sep 16 '11 at 1:07

LaurenG
2,3491029
Yes I've always been clear on phonetic vs phonemic transcriptions, just not on phonetics vs
 phonology. Also, many places don't seem to use /this/ and [this] consistently which doesn't help
hippietrail Sep 16 '11 at 1:12
add a comment
up A simple way to show the difference is that
vote5do
 phonetics is the study of possible sounds that a human mouth can make and
wn vote
human ear can hear over all languages
 phonology is the study of those same sounds within individual languages (which
in each language is a much smaller set that than the total possible).
When studying a particular language, phonology is mostly all that matters.
Comparison between languages brings out the phonetics. Catalan has one nasal
phoneme (doesn't distinguish m,n, and ng, even though they are pronounced as such
in different contexts). And English doesn't distinguish some things that make
semantic differences in other languages.

shareimprove this answer answered Sep 16 '11 at 13:35

Mitch
2,3881031
add a comment
up I'm surprised that nobody's mentioned the form/function distinction.
vote3do
Phonetics studies the nature (acoustic and articulatory) of sounds that human's
wn vote
produce while speaking. Phonology studies their function in differentiating meaning
in various contexts.

Thus (very crudely), phonetics will notice the difference between the aspirated and
non-aspirated /p/ in pin vs. spin. But phonology will be mostly interested in the fact
that the meaning of both words will change when you replace /p/ with /k/ in exactly
the same way as in lip vs. lick where aspiration doesn't enter the picture.

But of course, phonology can only be successful when it has good phonetics to rely
on.

shareimprove this answer answered Aug 16 '13 at 6:50

Dominik Lukes
8,412837
add a comment
up It's useful to think of phonology as more than just the individual sounds that are
vote2do distinctive in a given language, and instead as the 'grammar' of those sounds. A
wn vote phonological description should not just be 'here are the vowels and consonants I
found forming contrasts in language X' - it should also tell you about the rules that
govern these sounds, such as what sorts of combinations of sounds are possible
(phonotactics), what the stress patterns are and/or what the patterns of tonal marking
are, relevant prosodic characteristics (e.g. in many languages a question is marked by
 higher pitch utterance-finally), and of course, the allophonic variation that is
permitted for each phoneme, and in what sorts of environments certain allophones
occur. Phonetics, on the other hand, studies the acoustic and articulatory substance of
speech data, and the techniques used by phoneticians offer a great deal of detail about
the sounds of a language. This helps phonologists to back up their claims about
different types of sounds (or maybe demonstrates that someone's impressionistic
observations are not supported by the actual phonetic data, as is sometimes the case).
Phonetic analysis also helps to explain why certain phonological patterns occur,
because it is possible to analyse how and to what extent different sounds affect each
other, and these phonetic effects are important factors in allophonic variation and
language change. The two are not mutually exclusive and there are many linguists
who work in both phonetics and phonology, because these two sub-fields are, of
course, closely related, but also dependent on each other.

shareimprove this answer answered Sep 18 '11 at 6:38

Floating Tone
1,695815
add a comment
up Phonetics is what comes out of your mouth and goes into your ears. Phonology is
vote2do how those sounds are arranged in your head to go to your mouth, and how the sounds
wn vote from your ears are deconstructed to be processed by your brain.
shareimprove this answer edited May 20 '13 at 5:34 answered May 19 '13 at 18:49

Nick Anderegg
91411124
This seems like a great summing up to keep the distinction clear, but it implies both fields deal
only with production and neither with perception. – hippietrail May 20 '13 at 2:10
2 Slightly less succinct, but it covers both now! – Nick Anderegg May 20 '13 at 5:35
add a comment
up There's no difference in substance, but phonologists love to make theories and
vote1do phoneticians hate it.
wn vote answered May 7 '15 at 0:01
shareimprove this answer

Greg Lee
6,7611516
Phoneticians love theories too. Just different types of theories. – Araucaria Man Jun 17 '16 at 1
@Araucaria, Please name some theories loved by phoneticians. I can only think of Fant's acous
theory of speech production and Delattre's articulatory theory of speech perception. Theories m
 predictions. – Greg Lee Jun 17 '16 at 18:06
add a comment
up phonetics is the production and perception of speech sounds in any language and it
vote0do deals with "phone". Phonology on the other hand is the interpretation of speech
wn vote sounds in a particular language and it deals with phoneme: the smallest unit of sound.

shareimprove this answer answered May 19 '13 at 18:40

kandy Ndeshi Haimbodi

1
It's a good point that you include perception in phonetics along with production I think. But
with the concept of the phoneme being largely discredited wouldn't this mean that phonology h
also been largely discredited, which I don't think is true. – hippietrail May 20 '13 at 2:12
@hippietrail I think there's a big difference between disputed and discredited. – Araucaria Man
17 '16 at 10:21
add a comment
protected by Otavio Macedo May 20 '13 at 15:55
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