Examines the procedures involved in describing the sounds of a language and illustrates the basic techniques of experimental phonetics.

Written by Peter Ladefoged, one of the world's leading phoneticians.

Autorentext

Peter Ladefoged, UCLA Research Phonetician and Professor of Phonetics Emeritus, was Director of the UCLA Phonetics Laboratory from 1962 to 1991. His numerous books include Vowels and Consonants (Blackwell, 2001), Sounds of the World's Languages (with Ian Maddieson, Blackwell, 1996), and A Course in Phonetics (fourth edition, 2001).

Klappentext

Describing how people talk requires recording and analyzing phonetic data. This is true for researchers investigating the variant pronunciations of street names in Los Angeles, missionaries translating the Bible into a little-known tongue, and scholars obtaining data from a carefully controlled group in a laboratory experiment. Phonetic Data Analysis examines the procedures involved in describing the sounds of a language and illustrates the basic techniques of experimental phonetics, most of them requiring little more than a tape recorder, a video camera, and a computer.
This book enables readers to work with a speaker in a classroom setting or to go out into the field and make their own discoveries about how the sounds of a language are made. Peter Ladefoged, one of the world's leading phoneticians, introduces the experimental phonetic techniques for describing the major phonetic characteristics of any language. Throughout the book there are also comments, written in a more anecdotal fashion, on Ladefoged's own fieldwork.

Zusammenfassung
Phonetic Data Analysis examines the procedures involved in describing the sounds of a language and illustrates the basic techniques of experimental phonetics, most of them requiring little more than a tape recorder, a video camera, and a computer.

Inhalt

Preface. Acknowledgments.

1. Recording The Sounds Of A Language:.

Deciding What To Record.

Finding Speakers.

Recording Systems.

Making A Recording.

Digital Recording.

Listening To Recordings.

Field Notes.

Instrumental Phonetic Techniques.

2. Finding The Places Of Articulation:.

Still And Video Photography.

Basic Palatography.

More Elaborate Palatography.

Electropalatography.

Further Reading.

3. Aerodynamic Investigations:.

Recording Air Pressure And Airflow.

Measuring Air Pressure And Airflow.

Interpreting Aerodynamic Records.

Quantifying Nasalization.

Phonation Types.

Electroglottography.

Further Reading.

4. Pitch, Loudness And Length:.

Pitch Analysis.

Interpreting Pitch Curves.

Loudness, Intensity And Stress.

Waveforms And The Measurement Of Duration.

Further Reading.

5. Characterizing Vowels:.

Sound Spectrograms.

Spectra.

Vowel Charts.

Nasalized Vowels.

Further Reading.

6. Acoustic Analysis Of Consonants:.

Waveforms, Spectrograms And Duration Measurements.

Spectral Characteristics Of Nasals, Laterals, Approximants And Trills.

Fricatives And Stop Bursts.

Spectrograms And Place Of Articulation.

Spectrograms And Articulatory Movements.

Further Reading.

7. Acoustic Analysis Of Phonation Types:.

Waveforms Of Different Glottal States.

Spectral Characteristics Of Phonation Types.

Further Reading.

8. Coda:.

A General Purpose Phonetics Laboratory.

More Elaborate Instrumental Phonetic Techniques.

Saying Goodbye To Fieldwork.

Index.