Experimental Phonetics in Applied Linguistic Research

Abstract

The formation of experimental phonetics was accompanied by an interest to the physical nature of speech sounds. The experimental methodology makes it possible to detail the characteristics of sound formation mechanisms. The foundations of experimental phonetics were first laid at Kazan University at the end of the 19th century. Even then, the phonetic structures of the language were identified as paramount, due to which it became possible to substantiate, creatively and methodologically correctly, the theory and methodology of experimental study of the sound structure of the language, and to predict milestones and steps of future research. Extralinguistic views were largely transmitted through phonetic structures and units. It is really important to assess and reveal the role of phonetics in the formation of the scientific knowledge system, because in the conditions of multilingualism, the sounds of native speech implicitly act as a means to formalize mental spaces (according to the tradition of Kazan Linguistic School, this can be a model of the word phonemography). Acoustic phonetics helps to reveal the general patterns of the dynamics of the speech model in communication between the speakers of heterogeneous languages and to identify vulnerable points in the articulatory base, using the acoustic parameters of sounding speech elements. Modern instrumental research is aimed at describing the acoustic component of speech, which contributes to a further in-depth study of human speech phenomenon as a complex associative aggregate (the definition of V.A.Bogoroditsky, the founder of experimental phonetics in Russia). Our research is aimed at revealing the role and potential of experimental phonetics in the process of phonetic knowledge formation.

Phonetics and Phonology: A Grey Area of Research in Pakistan

“…Lexical databases are increasingly helpful to control frequency, phonotactics, neighborhood, etc. There are a lot more research techniques such as static palatography, nasal and oral air flow measurement, electroglottography, speech synthesis, learning simulations, etc., that are helpful to logically understand the phenomena of phonetics and phonology (Hayward, 2014;Martyanov, 2018).…”

“…The focal person in this regard is the teacher who could resolve the pronunciation related issues of the learners in the classroom. Usually, the learners are motivated to learn but there is requisite to provide them all required resources in a suitable environment (Chunata et al, 2018;Martyanov, 2018;Toçi, 2020).…”

“…was developed to study neurophysiological mechanisms, but later on, it emerged as an independent field linguistics which further attracted applied linguists for more sophisticated research. Experimental phonetics (acoustic phonetics) illuminates the dynamics of speech in communication among the speakers of heterogeneous languages and also contributes to understand the prosodic features of the speech (Hayes, 2011;Martyanov, 2018).…”

“…When we talk about learning a language other than one's native language, the English language is the foremost choice of the learners due to its worldwide dominance among other languages. Correct pronunciation is directly related to the competence of a speaker, therefore, the English language learners have been observed to strive for a nativelike proficiency to create a positive impression about their language competence (Hall & Hastings, 2017;Khan, 2020;Martyanov, 2018).…”

“…Simply the tape recordings for their repeated listening would not be described as experimental. There are four common reasons why experimental phonetics is of paramount importance: (a) Gaining full knowledge of abstract properties of a language is not possible without consideration of more concrete (Hayward, 2014;Martyanov, 2018). The aim of present study is to highlight those issues that make phonetics and phonology a grey area of research in Pakistan.…”