Importance Of Phonology In Linguistics

Phonology is an important aspect in the linguistics field. Phonology is the study of how sounds are organized and used in natural languages. Phonology also has a plethora of real world applications including deciphering ancient texts for translation, examining dialects within a specific country, speech recognition technology, teaching new languages, and even understand social identity within a group of people.
Phonology plays a major role in understanding extinct languages. The majority of translation for ancient languages such as Egyptian hieroglyphs can be transliterated. Transliteration is not the same as pronunciation through phonetics as there is no way to tell whether or not it is the correct pronunciation. When Egyptologists write publications on discoveries, they use the phonological transliteration of the writings. However for some languages, those that still have living native speakers, phonetics plays a greater role in actually speaking the language. An example of this is the Mesoamerican language of Nahuatl, which nearly went extinct after Spanish colonization …show more content…
An example of dialect defining a group of people is the English dialect of “Boontling.” Bootnling is the dialect of Boonville, California mixing in all the cultures that encompass the town: Scottish Gaelic, Spanish, Irish, and Pomoan. Social identity through a certain dialect of a language is used to identify outsiders, allows cultural ideas to develop around these words, which in turn affect the main language.
Phonology may be a small subfield in linguistics but it is a major cornerstone as well. Phonology has an abundance of real world applications including the ability to let us learn how other languages are spoken so we can teach others, how languages can identify a group of people within a nation, help to translate dead languages, and even has applications in the technological