24.915 | Fall 2015 | Undergraduate, Graduate

Linguistic Phonetics

Course Description

This course is about the study of speech sounds; how we produce and perceive them and their acoustic properties. Topics include the influence of the production and perception systems on phonological patterns and sound change, students learn acoustic analysis and experimental techniques. Students taking the graduate …
This course is about the study of speech sounds; how we produce and perceive them and their acoustic properties. Topics include the influence of the production and perception systems on phonological patterns and sound change, students learn acoustic analysis and experimental techniques. Students taking the graduate version complete different assignments.
Learning Resource Types
Problem Sets
Written Assignments
Lecture Notes
On the right is a waveform in black on a blue background, and on the left shows trees reflecting on a still lake with snowy mountains in the background.
A waveform shown next to a similar pattern in nature. The study of phonetics employs waveforms, spectrograms and electropalatography among other methods to learn about human speech and its influence on language. (Image courtesy of Anna Marinenko.)