Phonetics, Phonology, and Applied Linguistics

The relationship between phonetics, phonology, and applied linguistics continues to be a paradoxical one. On the one hand, these fields of linguistics lend themselves more readily to applicationthan others since they deal with something more tangible and material than morphology, syntax, semantics, or historical research. On the other hand, there is something esoteric in phonetics and phonology: The objects they handle–sounds, articulatory features, acoustic spectra, stress degrees or melodies–are more elusive and hard to observe for the non-specialist than, say, suffixes, word order, or even meanings. Their terminology is rich and often forbidding, and they may sometimes seem to insist on pedantic distinctions or irrelevant detail (Dieling 1992). The validity of the phonetics–phonology dichotomy itself may be questioned when it comes to their application; however, the two fields continue to develop separately and grow further apart. Thus the application of the “sound sciences”, phonetics and phonology, is partly more advanced and partly more rudimentary than that of other linguistic branches. The purpose of the present survey is to demonstrate the importance of phonology and its applications in TEFL. To do so, this survey will examine current development in both phonetics and phonology, and then suggest implications for instructional contexts.