Phonology: the study of the systems and patterns of speech sounds in languages.
Phonology Overview
• Theory based on unconsciously known sound patterns in a language.
• Concerns abstract or mental aspects of language sounds.
• Focuses on underlying design of each sound type.
• Variations in sound types may occur in different physical contexts.
Phonology is about the underlying design, the blueprint of each sound type, which may vary in different physical contexts.
When we think of the [t] sound in the words tar, star, writer, butter and eighth as being “the same,” we actually mean that, in the phonology of English, they would be represented in the same way.
However, all these articulation differences in [t] sounds are less important to us than the distinction between the [t] sounds in general and the [k] sounds, or the [f] sounds, or the [b] sounds, because there are meaningful consequences related to the use of one rather than the others.