The Sounds of the World's Languages (Phonological Theory)
Average Rating: out of 3 Reviews
Price: $64.95
Sale: $44.35
Manufacturer: Wiley-Blackwell
EAN (European Article Number): 9780631198154
Number of Items: 1
Binding: Paperback
Author: Peter Ladefoged::Ian Maddieson
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
Dewey Decimal Number: 414
Publication Date: 1996-02-12
Reading Level: 448
Description: This book gives a description of all the known ways in which the sounds of the world's languages differ. In doing so, it provides the empirical foundations for linguistic phonetics and phonology. Encapsulating the work of two leading figures in the field, it will be a standard work of reference for researchers in phonetics and linguistics for many years to come. The scope of the book is truly global, with data drawn from nearly 400 languages, many of them investigated at first hand by the authors. A picture of the full range of possible contrasting phonetic categories is created by comparing families of similar sounds across many different languages. Separate chapters deal with place of articulation, stops, nasals, fricatives, laterals, rhotics, clicks, vowels, and segments with multiple articulations. Each chapter is packed with illustrations documenting the articulatory and acoustic characteristics of the sounds discussed, and serving to illustrate the application of modern experimental techniques to descriptive phonetic studies.
Customer Reviews
Review Summary: The best birthday present I've ever received
Date: 2006-08-09
Details: This book is excellent and I have found it very useful both as a theorist and a fieldworker. It clarifies many common misconceptions about the nature and diversity of speech sounds, drawing on many years of studies by the authors and others. And by giving equal time to the phonetics of less-well-known languages, this book provides a corrective to phonetic references that concentrate primarily on English and other well-studied languages.
Review Summary: Best book on phonology for acoustic phoneticians
Date: 1999-04-13
Details: As a non-linguist, this is the best book on world languages for phonological questions and extra notes when you're writing an acoustic textbook. See the first few chapters of my "Acoustics of Speech Communication", 1999. Allyn & Bacon - - J.M. Pickett
Review Summary: Phoneticians...will be amply rewarded by this valuable book.
Date: 1998-11-01
Details: Phoneticians, pronunciation editors of dictionaries, linguists, language teachers, and others who are-and ought to be-interested in and knowledgeable about the sounds of many languages and who have-and ought to have-sufficient background and training to understand the technical materials on which understanding of the text relies will be amply rewarded by this valuable book.
As reviewed by Laurence Urdang, in the Summer 1996 issue (Vol. XXIII, No. 1) of VERBATIM, The Language Quarterly
out of 3 Reviews
