[General] I cannot understand this sentence [We are clearly able to disregard all the...]

[Lumia625]

Hello there,

I cannot understand this sentence, would you please explain it me?

We are clearly able to disregard all the subtle individual variation in the phonetic detail of voices and recognize each underlying sound type as part of a word with a particular meaning.

Thank you so much,

 

[gurpreetgill4u]

I am not a teacher.


I think what this means is that we try to find out where is the person from by hearing their voice .An Indian may say the same word differently than Americans and we can easily find that out by paying attention to the phonetic details..
For example if an American say hot /hɑːt/ it would be different to someone who is from the united kingdom /hɒt/ .So these are subtle differences in the way they speak.
But we quite clearly won't notice these differences sometimes,as in example
A) Would you (/pɪk/) pick up the trash.
This is the correct pronunciation of pick as any native would speak.
B) would you (/piːk/) pick up the trash.
This could be the way a non-native English speaker could sound like.But the pronunciation given here is for Peek.
we have overlooked the subtle difference in pronunciation,though it was clear to us it is not pick it is peek in the second sentences.From the context we have recognized that the underlying "i:" sound in B should be "I" sound.

Hence we have overlooked the subtle difference though we have recognized the speakers mistake in B.As the "i:" sound does not fit the bill in that context and "I" sound is part of that word pick our mind has replaced it automatically because it "I"
is part of the word pick not "i".

BTW I believe this a sentence from "The Study of language".

In nutshell our mind may not pay attention to the phonetic details if we know what the word in the context is.So even if I say pooock up the trash or piiiick up the trash ,our mind would register pick up the trash.


Context matter more than phonetics.
we have not only disregarded that difference b/w "I" and "i:" but also recognized "I" sound for "i:" because it is part of the word pick.
This is my opinion and I am not a teacher.

 

[gurpreetgill4u]

 

[Rover_KE]

Please state the source and author of that copyright text.

 

[MikeNewYork]

Your graphic does not show up for me.

 

[Lumia625]

Please state the source and author of that copyright text.

The study of Language
George Yule

 

[Lumia625]

Your graphic does not show up for me.

Well here is more information:

Such subtle differences enable us to identify individual voices and recognize people we know as soon as they speak. But those differences don't help us understand how we are able to work out what total strangers with unfamiliar voices are saying. We are clearly able to disregard all the subtle individual variation in the phonetic detail of voices and recognize each underlying sound type as part of a word with a particular meaning. To make sense of how we do that, we need to look at the more general sound patterns, or the phonology, of a language.