Vowels and Consonants - 3rd Edition by Peter Ladefoged & Sandra Ferrari Disner (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This popular and accessible introduction to phonetics has been fully updated for its third edition, and now includes an accompanying website with sound files, and expanded coverage of topics such as speech technology.

• Describes how languages use a variety of different sounds, many of them quite unlike any that occur in well-known languages
• Written by the late Peter Ladefoged, one of the world's leading phoneticians, with updates by renowned forensic linguist, Sandra Ferrari Disner
• Includes numerous revisions to the discussion of speech technology and additional updates throughout the book
• Explores the acoustic, articulatory, and perceptual components of speech, demonstrates speech synthesis, and explains how speech recognition systems work
• Supported by an accompanying website at www.vowelsandconsonants3e.com featuring additional data and recordings of the sounds of a wide variety of languages, to reinforce learning and bring the descriptions to life

From the Back Cover

This popular introduction to phonetics describes how languages use a variety of different sounds, many of them quite unlike any that occur in well-known languages. Peter Ladefoged rightly earned his reputation as one of the world's leading linguists, and students benefitted from his accessible writing and skill in communicating ideas. The third edition of his accessible introduction to phonetics has now been fully updated to reflect the latest trends in the field. It retains Peter Ladefoged's expert writing and knowledge, and combines them with Sandra Ferrari Disner's essential updates on topics including speech technology.

Vowels and Consonants explores a wide range of topics, including the main forces operating on the sounds of languages; the acoustic, articulatory, and perceptual components of speech; and the inner workings of the most modern text-to-speech systems and speech recognition systems in use today. The third edition is supported by an accompanying website featuring new data, and even more reproductions of the sounds of a wide variety of languages, to reinforce learning and bring the descriptions to life, at www.wiley.com/go/ladefoged.

Review Quotes

"The book is of interest to teachers and would help to develop readers' perception of speech production and their competence in spoken English. It is a 'must have' book that adds richness and knowledge to individuals and libraries." (Linguist, 31 October 2012)

About the Author

Peter Ladefoged (1925-2006) was Research Phonetician and Professor of Phonetics Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles, and was Director of the UCLA Phonetics Laboratory from 1962 to 1991 and was president of the Linguistic Society of America. He is the author of numerous books, including The Sounds of the World's Languages (with I. Maddieson, Wiley-Blackwell, 1996), Phonetic Data Analysis (Wiley-Blackwell, 2004), and A Course in Phonetics, Sixth Edition (with Keith Johnson, 2010).

Sandra Ferrari Disner teaches general and forensic linguistics at the University of Southern California. She has over 25 years of experience in speech technology, having developed commercial text-to-speech and speech-recognition systems in five languages, as well as the world's first talking video games.