Introduction to Phonetics

This introductory textbook in general phonetics was first published in 1976. It will be of use to all with an interest in the nature and working of the sound substance of human language, such as students of phonetics and linguistics, teachers and students of modern languages, speech therapists and audiologists. The emphasis is on the basics: the organs of speech and hearing, the methods of sound production in the vocal tract, the types of sound used in human languages, and the process of speech perception. The focus of attention is always the tongue and ear of the phonetician as an investigator of speech, rather than his instruments or experiments, with due attention paid to the phoneme and the distinctive feature, the units in that border area where phonetics and the study of languages come together.

Foreword; 1. Introduction; 2. The physics of sound; 3. The speech apparatus; 4. The production of sound in the vocal tract; 5. The description and classification of speech sounds; 6. The segmental sounds; 7. Combinations of sounds; 8. Prosodic features; 9. Hearing and perception of speech; 10. The functioning of sounds in language; 11. Syntagmatic structures and segmentation; Appendices; Further reading; List of references; Subject index.

This introductory textbook in general phonetics was first published in 1976. The emphasis is on the basics, and the focus of attention is always the tongue and ear of the phonetician as an investigator of speech, rather than his instruments or experiments, with due attention paid to the phoneme.