Speech is the most effective medium humans use to exchange and transmit knowledge, ideas and experiences. It exists physiologically as neural and muscular activity, and subsequent articulatory, acoustic and auditory events, and as an abstract, rule-governed system at the psychological level. Together, both levels produce communication by speech. To appreciate speech and its communicative function, all of its characteristics must be understood. This book offers the most comprehensive and accessible coverage of the three areas of phonetics: articulatory, acoustic, and auditory or speech perception. Students without a linguistics background can be daunted by phonetics, so clear language is used to define linguistics and phonetics concepts with examples and illustrations to ensure understanding. Furthermore, each chapter concludes with comprehension exercises to reinforce understanding. Online exercises and recordings of speech stimuli from various languages provide additional opportunity to hone perception, production, phonetic transcription skills and acoustic analysis measurement practice.

Including contributions from a team of world-renowned international scholars, this volume is a state-of-the-art survey of second language speech research, showcasing new empirical studies alongside critical reviews of existing influential speech learning models. It presents a revised version of Flege's Speech Learning Model (SLM-r) for the first time, an update on a cornerstone of second language research. Chapters are grouped into five thematic areas: theoretical progress, segmental acquisition, acquiring suprasegmental features, accentedness and acoustic features, and cognitive and psychological variables. Every chapter provides new empirical evidence, offering new insights as well as challenges on aspects of the second language speech acquisition process. Comprehensive in its coverage, this book summarises the state of current research in second language phonology, and aims to shape and inspire future research in the field. It is an essential resource for academic researchers and students of second language acquisition, applied linguistics and phonetics and phonology.

Speech is the most effective medium humans use to exchange and transmit knowledge, ideas and experiences. It exists physiologically as neural and muscular activity, and subsequent articulatory, acoustic and auditory events, and as an abstract, rule-governed system at the psychological level. Together, both levels produce communication by speech. To appreciate speech and its communicative function, all of its characteristics must be understood. This book offers the most comprehensive and accessible coverage of the three areas of phonetics: articulatory, acoustic, and auditory or speech perception. Students without a linguistics background can be daunted by phonetics, so clear language is used to define linguistics and phonetics concepts with examples and illustrations to ensure understanding. Furthermore, each chapter concludes with comprehension exercises to reinforce understanding. Online exercises and recordings of speech stimuli from various languages provide additional opportunity to hone perception, production, phonetic transcription skills and acoustic analysis measurement practice.