ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the sounds of languages, a topic usually referred to as phonetics. The study of phonetics is about sounds and their features, as well as the representation of sounds in the International Phonetics Alphabet (IPA). Spoken language also consists of separate words, chunks of 'noise'. Some elements that are regularly contracted in the spoken language, such as it's and don't, have even made it into the written form broken up at the word boundaries. Studying sounds are not only look at individual pronunciations, but also at the way in which languages organize their sounds. Sounds of the International Phonetics Alphabet (IPA) can be lumped together to express different meanings, such as the different pronunciations of /a/ in English. In English, some vowels are pronounced with rounded lips, while others are unrounded, yet there is no contrast in meaning between the two types. Consonants are generally need to appear together with vowels to be heard.
