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For example, /p/ and /b/ in English are distinctive units of sound, (i.e., phonemes.) We can tell this from minimal pairs such as "pin" and "bin", which mean different things, but differ only in one sound.
Note that the principles of phonological theory have also been applied to the analysis of signed languages, with gestures and their relationships as the object of study.
In some languages the phonemes are directly linked to spelling, i.e., a phoneme is represented by a graphical symbol or a combination of them, a letter or a letter combination. However in English different phonemes can be spelled the same way ("good" and "food" have different vowel sounds), so one should use the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to denote phonemes. To indicate that one means names instead of phones the phoneme or sequence of phonemes is enclosed by two slashes (or solidi) " / / " (without the quotes or pluralization; see above examples).
Part of the phonological study of a language involves looking at data (phonetic transcriptions of the speech of native speakers) and trying to deduce what the underlying phonemes are and what the sound inventory of the language is.
Even though a language may make distinctions between a small number of phonemes, speakers actually produce many more phonetic sounds. Thus, a phoneme in a particular language can be pronounced in many ways.
Looking for minimal pairs forms part of the research in studying the phoneme inventory of a language. However with this method it is often not possible to detect all phonemes so other approaches are used as well. A minimal pair is a pair of words, both from the same language, that differ by only a single phoneme, and that are recognized by speakers as being two different words.
When there is a minimal pair, then those two sounds constitute separate phonemes, otherwise they are called allophones of the same underlying phoneme. For instance, voiceless stops (/p/, /t/, /k/) can be aspirated. In English, word initial voiceless stops are aspirated, whereas non word-initial voiceless stops are not aspirated (This can be seen by putting your fingers right in front of your lips and notice the difference in breathiness as you say 'pin' and 'spin'). There is no English word 'pin' that starts with an unaspirated p, therefore in English, aspirated [pʰ] (the [ʰ] means aspirated) and unaspirated [p] are allophones of an underlying phoneme /p/.
This is not true of all languages however - both Cantonese and ThaiThe Thai language is the official language of Thailand. The Thai name for the language is phasa thai meaning "the language of Thais"). Thai is part of the Tai languages group of the Tai-Kadai language family. The Tai-Kadai languages are thought to have or make the distinction between [p] and [pʰ], so in those languages, /p/ and /pʰ/ are separate phonemes.
Another example... in English, the liquids /l/ and /ɹ / are two separate phonemes (minimal pair 'life', 'rife'); however, in KoreanThe Korean language is the most widely used language in Korea, and is the official language of both South and North Korea. The language is also spoken widely in neighbouring Yanbian, China. Worldwide, there are around 78 million Korean speakers, including these two liquids are allophones of the same phoneme, and the general rule is that [ɾ] comes before a vowel, and [l] doesn't (e.g. Seoul, Korea). A native speaker of KoreanThe Korean language is the most widely used language in Korea, and is the official language of both South and North Korea. The language is also spoken widely in neighbouring Yanbian, China. Worldwide, there are around 78 million Korean speakers, including will tell you that the [l] in Seoul and the [ɾ] in Korea are in fact the same letter. What happens is that a native Korean speaker's brain uses the underlying phoneme /l/, and depending on the phonetic context (before a vowel or not) this phoneme gets expressed as either the [ɾ] sound or the [l] sound. Another Korean speaker will hear both sounds as the underlying phoneme and think of them as the same sound. This is one reason why most people have an accent when they attempt to speak a language that they did not grow up hearing; their brains sort the sounds they hear in terms of the phonemes of their own native language.
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