The general study of the
characteristics of speech
sounds is called phonetics.
Our main interest will be in
articulatory
phonetics,
which is the study of how
speech sounds are made, or
articulated. Other are as of
study are acoustic phonetics,
which
deals
with
the
physical properties of speech
as sound waves in the air,
and auditory phonetics (or
perceptual phonetics) which
deals with the perception,
via the ear, of speech
sounds.