Phrenology != Phonology

Linguistics is a huge field. It includes everything from the algorithms behind Siri to preserving endangered languages like flies in amber to reconstructing dead languages. (Unlike biologists, we don’t have to worry about an undead T-Rex wandering around if things go terribly, terribly wrong.) Since it’s just one intrepid girl linguist here at Making Noise and Hearing Things, I’m going to have to restrict myself to just a single set of sub-disciplines. These are:

• Psycholinguistics: Like a zombie valiantly  trying to overcome his crippling aphasia, psycholinguistics all about language and brains. Since I’m all about sound, you’ll probably be getting a lot of stuff about brains and sound.
• Phonology: Often confused with  phrenology (no, seriously, this happens to me all the time) it’s the study of the systems of rules languages apply to their sounds. Here’s a quick example: say “dogs” and “cats”. Is the “s” on the end of both of those words the same? Try saying it again with your hand right above your Adam’s apple or where your Adam’s apple would be. When you say the “s” on “dogs” you should feel a slight buzzing, like you’ve swallowed a bee. The “s” on “cats”, though, doesn’t have it. Whether or not the final “s” has buzzing in it (linguists call it “voicing”) is determined by a simple rule in English: you get vibration on the final “s” if the sound before it had it. The “g” sound in “dog” has vibration; the “t” sound in “cat” doesn’t.
• Phonetics: This is the study of sounds themselves. Phonology is all like, “Oh, yeah, that was voicing.” Phonetics is all like, “Sure, but how much voicing? How long did it last? How much air came out?” Phonetics wants to know all the dirty details. Phonetics takes videos like this one, where you can see the vocal folds vibrating in slow motion. [[WARNING: If you are prone to nightmares of terrors from beyond space, you might want to skip this one. Just saying.]]

But, yeah, those are the biggies. I can’t promise I won’t be branching out from these sub-disciplines, but I can promise an extremely low frequency of syntax posts. (Low frequency! Get it? Because… sound… um. Never mind.)