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.
"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
"[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