Phonetics
Oxford Introduction to Language Study Series

Phonetics is an essential part of linguistics, as it is through analysing spoken language that linguistic data is collected. This book leads the reader through the main areas of phonetics, including how speech sounds are made and how phoneticians classify them in certain ways, the International Phonetic Alphabet, and how sounds are transmitted from speaker to hearer.

Preface. Section 1. Survey. 1. The science of speech. The speech chain. Phonetics. Phonetics and linguistics. 2. Making speech sounds. Speech and breathing. The larynx. The vocal tract above the larynx. Describing speech production. 3. Classifying speech sounds. Vowels. Consonants. 4. Tone and tone languages. Lexical and grammatical use of tone. Tone levels and contours. Tones and context. Tones and pitch-accents. 5. Suprasegmentals. Stress and accent. Intonation. Rhythm. Other suprasegmental features. 6. Acoustics of speech sounds. Acoustic waveforms. Acoustic and articulatory classification of speech sounds. Acoustics of suprasegmental features. 7. Sounds in systems. Systems of sounds. Groups of sounds. 8. Connected speech and coarticulation. Assimilation. Coarticulation. Elision. 9. Variation. Regional variation. Social variation. Style variation. Age and variation. Choosing the speech to study. Conclusion. Section 2. Readings. Section 3. References. section 4. Glossary.