Page 190 - Communication Cultural and Media Studies The Key Concepts

PHONEMIC/PHONETIC

contestants and viewers, at least in the non-competitive, fun versions
of such shows. Their warm and friendly linguistic performance slides
into corporate marketing, because the TV channel itself is associated
with the openness and other-orientation characteristic of phatic
communication.
See also: Language, functions of

PHONEMIC/PHONETIC

A useful conceptual distinction between two kinds of elements in a
signifying system – one capable of generating meaning, the other not.
The terms are borrowed from linguistics, but are applicable to any sign
system. In linguistics, a phoneme is one of a limited number of sounds
(in English there are about forty of them) that are recognised as part of
the system of such sounds. Verbal utterance is based on the selection
and combination of groups of these phonemes in a rule-governed
order.
Phonetic, on the other hand, describes the sounds actually made by a
speaker. The point about this is twofold:
. Each speaker will use her or his physiological, regional, contextual
and other resources to produce a unique version of the generally
recognised phoneme. No one says ‘I’ in quite the same way as
anyone else, but everyone in a speech community will recognise the
phoneme ‘I’ when used by a native speaker.
. All languages recognise as ‘the same’ phoneme sounds that are
actually different. For instance, the ‘k’ sound in the spoken words
‘kin’ and ‘ink’ sound ‘the same’ to the speaker and the hearer. But
they are actually different sounds, produced in slightly different parts
of the mouth. Try it.

The conceptual point about this is again twofold:
. If we paid attention to the sounds we all actually make rather than
the ones that are recognised by the language there is little chance we
would be able to make sense of anything – there are too many
differences.
. The power of language (as opposed to actuality) is so great that it is
difficult for us to perceive anything outside its recognised elements:
you may flatly disagree that the ‘k’ sounds are different, but an
oscilloscope would not.

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