[ noun ] the branch of acoustics concerned with speech processes including its production and perception and acoustic analysis <noun.cognition>
Phonetics \Pho*net"ics\, n. 1. The doctrine or science of sounds; especially those of the human voice; phonology.
2. The art of representing vocal sounds by signs and written characters.
The company's chairman and chief executive officer, Morton E. David, stresses that the Franklin data bases work through phonetics so that users don't have to know how to spell the word properly to get a definition or synonym.
"If you present an actor with a phonetics chart, he or she will get very intimidated," he says.
The Austrian actor had to learn his lines by phonetics, and Brando, the notorious mumbler, proved a big help.