This accessible textbook provides a clear and practical introduction to phonetics, the study of speech. Assuming no prior knowledge of the topic, it introduces students to the fundamental concepts in phonetic science, and equips them with the essential skills needed for recognizing, describing and transcribing a range of speech sounds. Numerous graded exercises enable students to put these skills into practice, and the sounds introduced are clearly illustrated with examples from a variety of English accents and other languages. As well as looking at traditional articulatory description, the book introduces acoustic and other instrumental techniques for analysing speech, and covers topics such as speech and writing, the nature of transcription, hearing and speech perception, linguistic universals, and the basic concepts of phonology. Providing a solid foundation in phonetics, Introducing Phonetic Science will be invaluable to all students beginning courses in linguistics, speech sciences, language pathology and language therapy. Further exercises will be available on an accompanying website.

‘This rigorous and comprehensive introduction will prove to be invaluable not only to students of phonetics and linguistics but to all who are interested in the study of sound, speech and language.’

Professor Yoshiki Nagase - University of Yamanashi, Japan

‘Ashby and Maidment have succeeded in synthesizing complex and challenging material in a way that is accessible to beginners … I have not used a better introductory textbook on the subject.’

Dominic Watt - Department of Linguistics, University of Aberdeen

‘An excellent introductory textbook. It is the only one that truly combines articulatory and instrumental approaches to phonetics. In addition it has a abundance of clear and helpful exercises.’

William Idsardi - Department of Linguistics, University of Delaware

‘Ashby and Maidment succeed resoundingly in introducing the basics of phonetics from scratch … They have illustrated the text excellently, with large, well-explained spectrograms and diagrams, and the volume is clearly written, with individual chapters on place and manner of articulation, phonation, air-stream mechanisms, co-articulation, suprasegmentals, speech perception and basic phonology. … Students of phonology and phonetics would benefit … and will find … some explanations that are clearly better than those available elsewhere.‘

Source: The Times Higher Education Supplement

'This introductory textbook in phonetics is excellently composed and written, it's style being mostly clear and elegant in spite of the complex topic. It contains a large number of figures, tables and practical exercises. Illuminating sound examples have been taken from several languages from different parts of the world. It also treats some issues that are usually not included in introductory textbooks, e.g. voice types, click modification, hearing deficiencies. ... the book will be highly recommendable, due to its very high quality in terms of coverage, as well as macro- and micro-level composition.'

Source: Moderna Sprak