Phonetics is the study and description of speech sounds and of the elements of pronunciation at large, since pronunciation is a complex of sounds (vowels and consonants), syllables, word accent and intonation.

Phonology studies the way in which phonetic elements function in a language, the way in which phonemes are organized in a given language, i.e. their combinatorial possibilities. The phoneme is the minimal unit in the sound system of a language.

Orthography is very closely connected with phonetics, which in its turn is connected with lexicology, grammar and stylistics. Because of the notoriously confusing nature of English spelling, it is particularly important to think of English pronunciation in terms of phonemes rather than letters of the alphabet.