Phonics, Phonetics and Diction (definition of terms)
Phonology: "phone" means sound while "logy" means study , thus phonology is the study of speech sounds of any language.
Phonetics: it means representing each speech sound with a single symbol. OR using a system of written symbols that represent speech sounds in a way that is very close to how they actually sound. That means, when you speak, you produce a string of sounds that form word(s). The graphical representation of each of the sounds, how they come together to form a word is called phonetics. Though very similar, the difference between phonics and phonetics is the number of sounds- while the former is restricted to the 26 letter sounds, the latter consist or considers ALL the 49 sounds
Note: there are 49 Phonetic sounds in English Language.
Phonics: is a method for teaching reading and writing of the English language by developing learners' phonemic awareness—the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate phonemes—in order to teach the correspondence between these sounds and the spelling patterns (graphemes) that represent them. Note: phonics is restricted to the letter sounds of the 26 letters and usually for early learners of the English Language.
*the limitation of phonics is this- English spellings are very inconsistent with their pronunciation, thus, there is really no totally reliable spelling pattern for pronunciation.
The same letter may give totally different sounds in the same or different word. For example, the letter "a" in the word 'ate' /et/ gives the vowel sound /e/ but in dance/da:ns/, it gives the vowel sound /a:/.
In phonics, it is mostly one letter gives you one but a closer look at it tells us that one letter can give up to four or more sounds either in the same word or in different word. In phonics, it is letter "a" sounds /ᴂ/ but letter "a" does not always sound /ᴂ/ in every word. For instance, the letter "a" in the word "ant" /ᴂnt/ sounds /ᴂ/ but "a" in "ball" /bƆ:l/ sounds completely different. So, you see, Phonics is restricted to the letter sounds of the 26 letters.
Diction: diction is the right/correct way of pronouncing the words of any language. You cannot really pronounce the words of a language unless you know the sounds of that language. Diction has to do with accent (the way and manner in which a person speaks- the correctness of his pronunciation and tones). For every language, there is a standard accent(correctness of pronunciation and tones). English Diction focuses on the standard accent of the English Language. The standard accent of the English Language is called Received Pronunciation (RP). So, it is possible for a non-native speaker of the English Language to speak English with the RP through the knowledge of the 49 sounds, the word stress and sentence stress and the intonation. This is what English Diction seeks to address.
The bottom line is this: phonology, phonics, phonetics, Diction are intertwined, interwoven or interrelated such that you cannot talk about one without talking about the others because they ALL deal with SOUNDS. (as simple as that- no splitting hairs about them).
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