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the context of phonology
martha c. pennington
what is phonology?
Many different answers can be given to the question, “What is phonology?”
The classical definition differentiates phonology from phonetics, as in
the following passage from Catford (2001):
The study of the physiological, aerodynamic, and acoustic characteris-
tics of speech-sounds is the central concern of phonetics [all emphases
as in the original]. The study of how sounds are organized into systems
and utilized in languages is the central concern of phonology. Neither
of these two linguistic disciplines is independent of the other. A
knowledge of what features of sound are most utilized in languages
determines what aspects of sound production are most worth studying
in depth. Thus phonetics depends to some extent upon phonology
to indicate areas of linguistic relevance and importance. Phonology,
on the other hand, is heavily dependent on phonetics, since it is
phonetics that provides the insights that enable one to discover what
sound features are linguistically utilized, and it is phonetics again, that
supplies the terminology for the description and classification of the
linguistically relevant features of sounds. (p. 177)
As this traditional delimitation of phonology and phonetics suggests,
these two areas of linguistics have long been understood to be interrelated.
In many approaches to phonology, the interconnection is captured in
terms of levels of language or levels of analysis of language, as, for example,
in Giegerich’s (1992) characterization of the practice of phonology:
1
M. C. Pennington (ed.), Phonology in Context
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2007
2 phonology in context
[A] phonological analysis entails two levels of representation – a
concrete (phonetic) one and an abstract (underlying) one – as well
as statements on how the units on one level are connected with
corresponding units on the other level. These statements have the
form of realisation rules…. (p. 31)
The distinction between phonetics as a more “concrete” level of rep-
resentation contrasted with phonology as a more “abstract” level of
representation is common.
Although most linguists agree that these two linguistic disciplines or
levels exist and are interconnected, the focus of linguistics has generally
been on phonology as an area separate from phonetics. The majority
of phonologists would argue that phonology, the level at which the
functional categories (e.g., phonemes) of the sound systems of spoken
languages exist, is primary, and that it is acceptable (and indeed common)
for phonologists to carry out their work with little or no attention to
phonetics. For many phoneticians, as illustrated by the views of Catford
above, phonologists disregard phonetics at their peril, since the phonetic
level provides the observable and measurable basis for phonology. Yet it is
fair to remark that just as phonologists often do phonology in disregard
of phonetics, so phoneticians generally carry out their measurements in
disregard of phonology.
For the most part, people working in these two closely related
linguistic disciplines do not communicate. What’s more, they tend
to view their single-minded focus as justified by the demands of their
work and the relative importance of their own discipline, sometimes as
sharply contrasted with that of the other discipline. As Clark and Yallop
(1990) observe:
Unfortunately, what may appear to be a reasonable division of labour
between phoneticians and phonologists is frequently discussed in the
context of assumptions about the “real” nature of speech. Thus the
idea that phonetics is concerned with universal properties of speech,
studied by scientific methods, may all too easily be read as a claim
that phonetics deals with objective physical or concrete reality, while
phonology is somewhat apologetically concerned with the linguistic
organization of this reality. Or, more or less reversing the argument,
phonology may be said to tackle the true mental reality behind speech,
while phonetics handles “merely” the concrete outworkings of this
reality. Hence the relationship between phonetics and phonology
becomes controversial and it is important to understand the reasons for
