Graphetics is a branch of linguistics

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

 concerned with the analysis of the physical properties of shapes used in writing

Writing

Writing is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and non-symbolic preservation of language via non-textual media, such as magnetic tape audio.Writing most likely...

. It is an etic study, meaning that it has an outsider's perspective and is not concerned with any particular writing system. It is contrasted with the related emic field of graphemics

Graphemics

Graphemics or graphematics is the linguistic study of writing systems and their basic components, i.e. graphemes.At the beginning of the development of this area of linguistics, Ignace Gelb coined the term grammatology for this discipline; later some scholars suggested to call it graphology to...

, the study of the relation between different shapes in particular writing systems. Graphetics is analogous to phonetics

Phonetics

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech, or—in the case of sign languages—the equivalent aspects of sign. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds or signs : their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory...

; graphetics is to the study of writing as phonetics is to the study of spoken language

Spoken language

Spoken language is a form of human communication in which words derived from a large vocabulary together with a diverse variety of names are uttered through or with the mouth. All words are made up from a limited set of vowels and consonants. The spoken words they make are stringed into...

. As such, it can be divided into two areas, visual graphetics and mechanical graphetics, which are analogous to auditory

Auditory phonetics

Auditory phonetics is a branch of phonetics concerned with the hearing of speech sounds and with speech perception.-See also:* Acoustic phonetics* Auditory illusion* Auditory processing disorder* Hearing * Motor theory of speech perception...

 and articulatory

Articulatory phonetics

The field of articulatory phonetics is a subfield of phonetics. In studying articulation, phoneticians explain how humans produce speech sounds via the interaction of different physiological structures....

 phonetics, respectively. Both printed

Printing

Printing is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing....

 and handwritten

Handwriting

Handwriting is a person's particular & individual style of writing with pen or pencil, which contrasts with "Hand" which is an impersonal and formalised writing style in several historical varieties...

language can be the subject of graphetic study.