Phonetics vs Phonemics (Phonology)

Phonemics, or Phonology, is the study of the distribution of sound systems in human languages. A Phoneme is a particular set of sounds produced in a particular language and distinguishable by native speakers of that language from other (sets of) sounds in that language. That’s what “distinctive” means — the English phonemes /n/ and /ŋ/ can be told apart by native speakers of English, because we use these sounds to distinguish different words — sin ~ sing, ton ~ tongue, run ~ rung, etc. This would be impossible if these phonemes weren’t distinctive in English.

Phonetics, on the other hand, is simply the physiological and acoustic study of speech sounds, covering all sounds used in all languages, and relying only on the physical and physiological characteristics of the sounds, without regard to their systemic patterns in various languages. — Source: What is the difference between “phonetic” and “phonemic”?

See also:

• What is the difference between “phonetic” and “phonemic”?
• Phonemic vs Phonetic Transcription Phonetics
• Differences between phonemic and phonetic transcriptions
• Phonetics vs. Phonology