Acoustic phonetics is a subfield of linguistics that focuses on the acoustic properties of speech sounds. This research area examines how speech sounds are produced, transmitted, and perceived by the human auditory system. Acoustic phonetics uses specialized equipment to analyze the physical characteristics of speech sounds, such as pitch, intensity, duration, and formants. Researchers in this field study how these acoustic properties vary across languages, dialects, and individual speakers, and how they influence the perception and production of speech sounds. Acoustic phonetics is important for understanding the mechanisms underlying speech production and perception, as well as for applications in speech technology, forensic linguistics, and clinical speech therapy.