Wiley-Blackwell Vowels and Consonants

Review "Only Peter Ladefoged, the world′s leading phonetician, could produce a work like this: an authoritative and thorough introduction to phonetics written in a style that can be understood by a reader with no prior background in linguistics" John Ohala, University of California, Berkeley "[This book] lucidly discusses issues that are not commonly covered in introductions to phonetics, including computerized speech synthesis and recognition, which ties in with a major focus on acoustics from the first chapter onwards." Times Higher Education Supplement "This is a fascinating, accessible, and reader–friendly book by a master phonetician, about how speech sounds are made, and how they can be analyzed. Being able to hear the sounds under discussion, on the accompanying CD, is really useful. I warmly recommend the book to everyone with an interest, professional or otherwise, in spoken language." John Laver, Queen Margaret University College Product Description This popular and accessible introduction to phonetics is now available in a fully updated second edition. Peter Ladefoged describes how languages use a variety of different sounds, many of them quite unlike any that occur in well–known languages. Important topics covered in Vowels and Consonants include: ∗ The main forces operating on the sounds of languages ∗ The acoustic components of speech and speech synthesis ∗ Computers and Text–To–Speech systems and speech recognition systems ∗ Descriptions of the sounds of a wide variety of languages that are reproduced on the accompanying CD. This revised edition includes a new chapter on how we listen to speech and the greatly expanded CD now contains data on 100 languages to reinforce learning and bring the descriptions to life. From the Back Cover This popular and accessible introduction to phonetics is now available in a fully updated second edition. Peter Ladefoged describes how languages use a variety of different sounds, many of them quite unlike any that occur in well–known languages. Important topics covered in Vowels and Consonants include: The main forces operating on the sounds of languages The acoustic components of speech and speech synthesis Computers and Text–To–Speech systems and speech recognition systems Descriptions of the sounds of a wide variety of languages that are reproduced on the accompanying CD. This revised edition includes a new chapter on how we listen to speech and the greatly expanded CD now contains data on 100 languages to reinforce learning and bring the descriptions to life. About the Author Peter Ladefoged, UCLA Research Phonetician and Professor of Phonetics Emeritus, was Director of the UCLA Phonetics Laboratory from 1962 to 1991. He is author of numerous books, including A Course in Phonetics (fourth edition, 2001) and Phonetic Data Analysis (Blackwell, 2004).