I take it you don't really get the relationship between phonetics and

phonology...

Fear no more,

help is at hand

In this video I'm going to try and shed some light upon these two monsters

of linguistics

Let us start:

What you see here is what linguists commonly refer to as "ground"

On this ground there is a house.

And who might this house belong to?

Now, don't worry

this is not a children's educational video; it's all part of the plan.

This house belongs to Mister /r/-Phoneme.

And what does Mister /r/-Phoneme's house have to do with phonetics and phonology?

Well let me explain:

For the purpose of this video

this house is what linguists call: langue

What langue means is the abstract system of language, the blueprint if you want so

This house is the blueprint of the phoneme /r/

Now here's a tricky question for you:

How do we enter houses?

Exactly: through doors!

Mr /r/-Phoneme's house

has three doors.

What are the signs on the doors?

These are phones! specifically the phones

[R], [ɹ] and [ɾ]

We know that phones are sounds that we can produce

and in English

a native speaker of English would be able to recognize all these sounds as

the /r/-phoneme

So you're free to choose

whether you want to stay

[bRu:m], [bɹu:m]

or [bɾu:m]

A native speaker will always understand that you have an urgent wish to sweep

the house

The counterpart of langue is called parole.

Parole is concerned with how we use language

As you know,

phonology is the study of how sounds distinguish meaning

with its smallest meaning distinguishing unit

the phoneme

Phonetics is the study of sounds that humans can produce

and its units

are called phones

So let us say that phonology refers to the system of langue

the abstract system of language whereas phonetics refers to the system of

parole

the system of language use

And now you might have realized already that [R], [ɹ]

and [ɾ]

are allophones!

Allophones of which phoneme?

Of course!

the /r/-phoneme

And this is how it works:

We enter the abstract system of phonology, that is

producing the sound of important meaning

by choosing from a set of sounds that all transport this meaning

This is the relationship

between phonetics and phonology

Houses are phonemes

and doors are phones by which we can enter phonemes

What a nice metaphor!

What?

Now you wondering: what the heck is a metaphor?

No problem!

Help is underway.

Just click on the "what-the-heck-is-a -metaphor" button

and you will be enlightened

Credit for this video goes to Jana,

the inventor of this great comparison