Formant analysis is a method used in phonetics to study and analyze the frequency components of human speech sounds. Specifically, formants refer to the resonance frequencies of the vocal tract during the production of vowels and other speech sounds. By identifying and measuring the formants present in a speech signal, researchers can gain insights into the articulatory configuration and acoustic properties of different sounds. Formant analysis is often used in fields such as speech synthesis, phonetics, and speech recognition to better understand and model the characteristics of spoken language.