The course objective is to enable students to acquire the concepts and scientific instruments needed to understand the mechanisms that drive the production (phonetics) and organization (phonology) of the sounds of human language. To this end, a particular emphasis will be placed on the dialectal varieties of language. This preparation will allow students to put into practice the principles of the phonetic transcription of single words and enunciations (their concatenation) using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Students will also confront the study of the segmental system and some of the super-segmental characteristics of language (duration, accent and tone, for example), which go beyond the theories linked to the phonological structure of words and enunciation

Required texts: Maturi, Pietro. (2009). I suoni delle lingue, i suoni dell’italiano. Introduzione alla fonetica (seconda edizione). Bologna: Il Mulino. (pp. 9-113). ISBN: 978-88-15-13305-2.
Nespor, Marina & Bafile, Laura. (2008). I suoni del linguaggio. Bologna: Il Mulino. ISBN: 978-88-12678-8.