There are several branches of phonetics including articulatory, acoustic, auditory, functional, general, descriptive, historical, special, comparative, practical, and theoretical phonetics. Articulatory phonetics studies how speech sounds are produced. Acoustic phonetics examines the physical properties of sounds. Auditory phonetics investigates how people perceive speech sounds. Functional and comparative phonetics analyze the linguistic and correlational aspects of sounds between languages. Practical phonetics considers how sounds relate to meaning while theoretical phonetics focuses on how phonetic units function in language.

1. BRANCHES OF
PHONETICS

2. Phonetics
Articulatory
Acoustic
Auditory
Functional

3. Articulatory phonetics is the study of
the way the vocal organs are used to
produce speech sounds.

4. Acoustic phonetics is the study of the
physical properties of speech sounds.

5. Auditory phonetics is the study of the
way people perceive speech sounds, in
other words, it investigates the hearing
process.

6. The branch of phonetics concerned
with the study of the functional
(linguistic) aspect of speech sounds is
called phonology.

7. Phonetics
General
Descriptive
Historical
Special

8. Comparative phonetics studies the
correlation between the phonetic
systems of two or more languages and
find out the correspondences between
the speech sounds of kindred
languages.

9. Phonetics
Practical Theoretical

10. Practical, or normative, phonetics
studies the substance, the material
form of phonetic phenomena in
relation to meaning.

11. Theoretical phonetics is mainly
concerned with the functioning of
phonetic units in language.