Phonetics and Other Disciplines
Our further point will be made in connection with the relationship of
phonetics and other disciplines. As it was already mentioned phonetics is
one of the basic branches of linguistics, naturally it is closely connected
with the other linguistic disciplines: lexicology and grammar.
Special attention should be given to the relations ofphonetics and social
sciences. Language is not an isolated phenomenon; it is a part of society, a
part of ourselves. The functioning of phonetic units in society is studied by
sociophonetics. It should be mentioned here that over the last few decades
there appeared a number ofdistinct interdisciplinary subjects, such as sociolinguistics
(and sociophonetics correspondingly), psycholinguistics, mathematicallinguistics
and others. These, as their titles suggest, refer to aspects of
language which can be studied from two points ofview (sociology and linguistics,
psychology and linguistics and so on), which requires awareness and development
ofconcepts and the techniques derived from both disciplines.
Sociophonetics studies the ways in which pronunciation interacts with
society. In other words, it is the study of the way in which phonetic structures
change in response to different social functions. Society here is used in
its broadest sense, to cover a spectrum of phenomena such as nationality,
regional and social groups, and specific interactions of individuals within
them. There are innumerable facts to be discovered and considered, even
about a language as well investigated as English, concerning, for instance,
the nature ofthe different situations - when we are talking to equals, superiors
or subordinates; when we are 'on the job', when we are old or young;
male or female; when we are trying to persuade, inform, agree or disagree
and so on. Needless to say sociophonetic information is of crucial impor4.
Phonetics and Other Disciplines
tance for language teachers and language learners in the context of crosscultural
communication.
One more example ofinterdisciplinary overlap is the relation oflinguistics
to psychology. Psycholinguistics as a distinct area ofinterest developed
the sixties, and in its early form covered the psychological implications of
an extremely broad area, from acoustic phonetics to language pathology.
Nowadays no one would want to deny the existence ofstrong mutual bonds
between linguistics, phonetics in our case and psychology. Here are some of
the problems covered by psycholinguistics: the acquisition of language by
children, the extent to which language meditates or structures thinking;
extent to which language is influenced and itself influences such things as
memory, attention, perception; the problems of speech production and
speech perception; speech pathology.
Phonetics is also closely connected with a number ofnon-linguistic disciplines
which study different aspects ofspeech production and speech perception:
physiology, anatomy, physics (acoustics). In phonetic research
they use mathematics, statistics, computer science.
There is one more area phonetics is closely connected with. It is the
study of non-verbal means ofcommunication.
How do people communicate?
Too often there is a difference between what we say and what we think
we have said, though we use appropriate grammatical structures, words and
intonation. It may even cause a break in communication.
It may happen because we speak with our oral organs, but we converse
with our entire bodies. Conversation consists ofmuch more than a simpJe
interchange ofspoken words. All ofus communicate with one another nonverbally.
It means that we communicate without using words and involving
movements ofdifferent parts ofthe body.
It is believed that 7% of communication is conveyed by words, 38%
by sounds and intonation and 55% - by non-verbal means. They are: facial
expression, gestures and postures.
D. Crystal insists that the meaning of particular nuclear tones depends
on the combination with particular facial expression.
Non-verbal elements express very efficiently the emotional or the modal
side ofthe message.
The study of non-verbal means of communication is called kinesics.
The analysis ofspoken discourse often includes references both to the phonetic
and non-verbal aspects ofspeech communication. So we can say that
phonetics overlaps with kinesics.
The field of phonetics is thus becoming wider and tends to extend over
the limits originally set by its purely linguistic applications. On the other
hand, the growing interest in phonetics is partly due to increasing recognition
of the central position of language in every line of social activity. It is
important, however, that the phonetician should remain a linguist and look
upon phonetics as a study of the spoken form oflanguage. It is its application
to linguistic phenomena that makes phonetics a social science in the
proper sense ofthe word