American English Phonetics and Pronunciation Practice provides an accessible introduction to basic articulatory phonetics for students of American English. Built around an extensive collection of practice materials, this book teaches the pronunciation of modern standard American English to intermediate and advanced learners worldwide. This book: * provides an up-to-date description of the pronunciation of modern American English; * demonstrates the use of each English phoneme with a selection of high-frequency words, both alone and in context in sentences, idiomatic phrases and dialogues; * provides examples and practice material on commonly confused sounds, including illustrative pronunciation diagrams; * is supported by a companion website featuring complete audio recordings of practice material to check your pronunciation against; * can be used not only for studying pronunciation in the classroom but also for independent practice. American English Phonetics and Pronunciation Practice is essential reading for any student studying this topic.

American English Phonetics and Pronunciation Practice provides an accessible introduction to basic articulatory phonetics for students of American English. Built around an extensive collection of practice materials, this book teaches the pronunciation of modern standard American English to intermediate and advanced learners worldwide. This book: * provides an up-to-date description of the pronunciation of modern American English; * demonstrates the use of each English phoneme with a selection of high-frequency words, both alone and in context in sentences, idiomatic phrases and dialogues; * provides examples and practice material on commonly confused sounds, including illustrative pronunciation diagrams; * is supported by a companion website featuring complete audio recordings of practice material to check your pronunciation against; * can be used not only for studying pronunciation in the classroom but also for independent practice. American English Phonetics and Pronunciation Practice is essential reading for any student studying this topic.

Co-published by Routledge and Edition Synapse

By the end of the nineteenth century, phonetics was increasingly recognized as a valid scientific discipline. While early experimental and instrumental research in speech science was concentrated in Germany, France, and the USA, in Britain thanks to the pioneering work of scholars such as Alexander Melville Bell, Isaac Pitman, Alexander J. Ellis, and Henry Sweet the emphasis was on what is now known as articulatory phonetics. (See further Phonetics of English in the Nineteenth Century (Routledge, 2006), compiled by the editors of the current collection.) These pioneers regarded their task as essentially one of observation and description. Although they were perfectly prepared to utilize scientific findings where these might assist their investigations, they did not consider experimental work to be their prime objective.

The twentieth century saw the consolidation of previous efforts. Many of these developments were centred round the work of what has come to be called the British School of phonetics under the leadership of Daniel Jones, Professor of Phonetics at University College London. (Jones s seminal contributions are documented in another set edited by Collins and Mees; see Daniel Jones: Selected Works (Routledge, 2002).) The present collection concentrates largely on the work of Jones s colleagues at University College, and also documents how the British School extended its influence further afield to Europe, North America, Japan and, effectively, worldwide.

Although articulatory phonetics provides the thread running through the publications now very difficult to obtain that have been brought together in this collection, they vary widely in their content. This is consistent with the view of Jones and his colleagues that phonetics should be considered as a practical science, with many potential applications helping to provide solutions to problems encountered in the real world. An area of prime importance was the teaching of pronunciation to language learners, and in particular the acquisition of English pronunciation by non-natives. Apart from works devoted to second-language acquisition, and in particular to the teaching of English as an acquired language, this emphasis also led to the production of important English pronunciation dictionaries, including the Afzelius dictionary reproduced as Volume I of this collection. Other areas covered in the following volumes include key foundational work on dialectology, intonation theory and practice, the growth of broadcasting and the influence of radio (especially the BBC) on the establishment of a de facto standard southern British English pronunciation.

Making readily available materials which have until now been very difficult for phoneticians, phonologists, and other linguists to locate and use, English Phonetics: Twentieth-Century Developments is a veritable treasure-trove. The gathered works are reproduced in facsimile, giving users a strong sense of immediacy to the texts and permitting citation to the original pagination. And with a substantial introduction, newly written by the editors, the collection is destined to be welcomed as a vital reference and research resource.

Work on speech sound and the sound systems of languages can be traced back in the British Isles at least as far as the sixteenth century. It was, however, only in the nineteenth century that the word "phonetics" was actually coined, and it was also at this time that a wider interest in the subject grew. This was reflected in the appearance of a large number of books and other publications dealing with speech sound, and also in the application of phonetics to such diverse areas as language teaching, elocution, teaching the deaf, shorthand writing and dialectology. The nineteenth century can therefore be said to be the era when the true foundations of the modern disciplines of phonetics and phonology were laid.
This collection includes works by well-known figures such as Isaac Pitman, Alexander Ellis, Alexander Melville Bell, and Henry Sweet. In addition, contributions of less well-known contemporaries such as Laura Soames, Robert Ioan Prys and Richard Lloyd are also included. The set also features a new introduction by the editors.