Full Description
The clear and easy way to get a handle on the science of speech The science of how people produce and perceive speech, phonetics has an array of real-world applications, from helping engineers create an authentic sounding Irish or Canadian accent for a GPS voice, to assisting forensics investigators identifying the person whose voice was caught on tape, to helping a film actor make the transition to the stage. Phonetics is a required course among students of speech pathology and linguistics, and it's a popular elective among students of telecommunications and forensics. The first popular guide to this fascinating discipline, Phonetics For Dummies is an excellent overview of the field for students enrolled in introductory phonetics courses and an ideal introduction for anyone with an interest in the field.
Bonus instructional videos, video quizzes, and other content available online for download on the dummies.com product page for this book.
Contents
Introduction 1
Part I: Getting Started with Phonetics 7
Chapter 1: Understanding the A-B-Cs of Phonetics 9
Chapter 2: The Lowdown on the Science of Speech Sounds 15
Chapter 3: Meeting the IPA: Your New Secret Code 37
Chapter 4: Producing Speech: The How-To 51
Chapter 5: Classifying Speech Sounds: Your Gateway to Phonology 73
Part II: Speculating about English Speech Sounds 91
Chapter 6: Sounding Out English Consonants 93
Chapter 7: Sounding Out English Vowels 107
Chapter 8: Getting Narrow with Phonology 123
Chapter 9: Perusing the Phonological Rules of English 131
Chapter 10: Grasping the Melody of Language 145
Chapter 11: Marking Melody in Your Transcription 157
Part III: Having a Blast: Sound, Waveforms, and Speech Movement 169
Chapter 12: Making Waves: An Overview of Sound 171
Chapter 13: Reading a Sound Spectrogram 191
Chapter 14: Confirming That You Just Said What I Thought You Said 219
Part IV: Going Global with Phonetics 235
Chapter 15: Exploring Different Speech Sources 237
Chapter 16: Visiting Other Places, Other Manners 253
Chapter 17: Coming from the Mouths of Babes 277
Chapter 18: Accentuating Accents 291
Chapter 19: Working with Broken Speech 315
Part V: The Part of Tens 333
Chapter 20: Ten Common Mistakes That Beginning Phoneticians Make and How to Avoid Them 335
Chapter 21: Debunking Ten Myths about Various English Accents 341
Index 347
