By phonetics is meant the science of speech sounds, their production by means of lips, tongue, palate, and vocal chords, their acoustic qualities, their combination into syllables and other sound groups, and finally quantity, stress and intonation. Phonetics thus may be called that part of linguistic science which deals with the outward aspect of language as opposed to the inner or psychological side of language, or it may be lookt upon as that part of physics and of physiology which deals specially with sounds as used by human beings to communicate thoughts and feelings to one another. Among those who have contributed to the development of phonetic science we find physicists like Helmholtz, physiologists like Brücke, and philologists like Sievers, Storm and Sweet.
But what is the use of this science of speech sounds? Before attempting to answer this question I must be permitted to say that such a question in itself is not a scientific question. The true man of science pursues his inquiries without asking at every point about the use of examining this or that. A zoologist will not be deterred from examining the habits of ants or the muscular structure of their hindlegs by the cry of the man in the street that it is no use knowing all these things; he will go on patiently observing his animals in exactly the same conscientious and laborious way as if each little step in advance meant so much money saved or gained for mankind, or so much food for the poor. The truly scientific mind does not ask about profit or use, but tries by every accessible means to add to human knowledge and to our intelligent understanding of the wonderful world that surrounds us.
Still, the question about utility is not quite futile; only it should not be urged in the first place, and it should never stand in the way of scientific research, however useless it may seem in the eyes of the uninitiated. Science is useful; but often it is so in a roundabout or indirect way. When my countryman Oersted discovered that an electric current influenced the movements of a magnetic needle, he made a great step forward in science. He immediately saw the immense importance of his discovery for our knowledge of the great mystical powers of electricity and magnetism; he did not stop to ask himself about the practical usefulness of such knowledge; his concern was exclusively with the theoretical side of the question, and joyfully he sent out the message to his brother scientists that here was one important problem solved. But then, your countryman (1) Morse seized upon this theoretical discovery and turned it to practical account: the electric telegraph came into existence, and everybody saw the use of Oersted's discovery. In the same manner purely scientific investigations may unexpectedly lead to some great practical result: the observation of the habits of mosquitoes leads to the diminution of malaria and other diseases, and research work in chemistry may eventually benefit mankind in some way not at all anticipated by the original initiator.
Practical usefulness thus often comes in at the back door, tho it should not be our primary object in scientific pursuits. But on the other hand, if it is possible to point out some practical advantages, this can do no harm, and may even be valuable in inducing people to take up some line of study which has not hitherto been thought necessary to average students. And this applies with especial force to phonetics, which, besides presenting great interest to the inquisitive spirit, offers also no inconsiderable practical advantage to the student.
The teacher of foreign languages will find that a thoro knowledge of the essentials of phonetics will be extremely helpful to him in his classroom. Everybody knows the manner in which corrections of pronunciation were generally made in old-fashioned classes, and how they are still made by too many teachers, even among those who have themselves acquired a good pronunciation of the language they are teaching. The pupil reads some word in some miserably erroneous way, the teacher stops him and pronounces the word in, let us assume, the correct way. The pupil tries to imitate that pronunciation, but fails, and thus we have an endless repetition of the same word by the teacher, followed very often on the part of the pupil by an equally endless repetition of nearly the same bad pronunciation as before, tempered as often as not by mistakes in the opposite direction, the pupil shooting over the mark where before he had shot below the mark. By dint of enormous patience much may no doubt be achieved in this way; but the way is long and laborious, and so tedious that generally all attempts are given up after some time, with no visible result except that of some precious time lost to both parties concerned. How different, if the teacher knows his business, that is to say, knows enough of phonetics to be able to tell the pupil just exactly what is the difference between the sound as he pronounced it and the sound as it should be. Then he is able to strike at the root of the evil, chiefly thru an isolation of both sounds concerned: he pronounces them long and distinct by themselves, without any sounds before or after which are apt to bewilder the ear by diverting the attention from the sounds themselves, and then he shows how the difference of impression which it is now easy to appreciate, is produced by shifting the tongue a little forward or a little backward, or by voicing the sound, or whatever the mistake in question may be. He has here to give a few explanations which are theoretical, to be sure, but of the kind that appeal at the same time to the practical instinct of the pupils and can be made interesting and attractive. A simple drawing on the blackboard, a look into a hand-mirror, a little experimenting with your fingers, and there you are: the sound that appeared so difficult to appreciate is now understood in its mechanism, and the practise needed to possess it for ever is nothing but a kind of play, which is felt to be just as enjoyable as learning how to whistle or to play other tricks with one's mouth is to the average child.
When I began to teach French and English in Copenhagen, it was a kind of dogma there that - as one of the chief school authorities seriously informed me in a public discussion - there were certain sounds, such as the soft s in French and English, which no normal Danish tongue was ever able to pronounce, and that it was therefore necessary for us to confuse seal and zeal, ice and eyes, etc. It was no use at that time for me to tell him that the difficulty in question had nothing whatever to do with the tongue, but depended entirely on the vocal chords, and that as a matter of fact I had succeeded in teaching a whole class to pronounce correctly the sound in question, the voiced [z] as I prefer to call it. But I am glad to say that the same skeptic has since been completely converted, and that now he insists that all the language masters of his school teach their pupils the correct pronunciation and employment of this very important sound.
The sounds of [y] (2) as in French vu or German über and [ö] as in French veut or German höhe present difficulties for English-speaking pupils who are inclined to imitate the two sounds by means of some other diphthong or combination like that found in English view. It is best to practise these two sounds together, and it is easiest to learn them in their long form: on the whole it will be a good thing for the teacher to pronounce any new sound, whether consonant or vowel, as long as possible to the pupils in order to familiarize the ears of the pupils with it. That it is not impossible to learn these sounds of [y] and [ö] was brought home to me some years ago in a striking manner. These sounds are also found in Danish; an English-speaking lady who had been in Denmark for some years had not been able, in spite of unceasing efforts, to learn them by imitation. Then I made a bet that I could teach her to pronounce them in less than ten minutes, and I won the bet thru five minutes' practical exercises. The directions were about as follows: say [u·] as in too very loudly, and hold it as loud as you can without taking breath. Once more: observe in the hand-mirror the position of the lips. Then say tea [ti·] in the same way; draw the vowel until you can hold it no longer; continue all the time to observe the position of the lips in the mirror. Now [u···] again; then [i···] - one dot in my phonetic transciption indicates the usual quantity of a long vowel, and three dots an unusually lengthened vowel. The lips are rounded for some vowels, slit-shaped for others. Try to pout them rather more than you do usually. Pronounce [u···] a couple of times with the lips rounded and as close to each other as possible, and concentrate your attention on the lips. Then say [i···] a few times, paying attention to the position of the tongue; you will feel that the sides of the tongue touch the roof of the mouth or the teeth. Now look in the mirror: say [i···] again, and now suddenly, taking care to keep the tongue in the same position, let your lips take the rounded, pouted position they had before. If the pupil is still unable to pronounce [y] because he involuntarily shifts his tongue-position back again to the familiar [u]-position, the teacher passes on to the second part of the experiment, which is surer, and might therefore have been taken first: place your lips in this pouted [u]-position, without producing any sound, look in the mirror, and be very careful that the position of the lips remains unchanged, and then try to say [i···]. If the tongue is placed in the correct position for [i·] as in tea, the result can not be anything else but a [y·]. This sound is retained and repeated until the pupil is perfectly sure of both the articulation and the acoustic effect. Then the sound [ö] may be taken up. It may be produced with [y]