Introduction to Phonetics for Students of English, French, German and Spanish

This Introduction to Phonetics was originally a booklet produced in the School of Modern Languages at the University of Southampton, to serve as a background and further reading text for the Articulatory Phonetics component of our first-year Linguistics unit. It focuses on the structure and linguistic function of the vocal tract, the classification of vowels and consonants, the International Phonetic Alphabet and its use in phonetic transcription. Though phonology/phonemics is not explicitly covered, the references to broad and narrow transcription in the final section will point the user in that direction.

It is primarily addressed to native anglophones, drawing on their knowledge and experience of English. However, it also contains extensive illustration from standard French, German and (Castilian) Spanish, with plenty of emphasis on the phonetic resemblances and differences between these four languages. There are around a hundred exercises (answers are supplied), in which, again, English, French, German and Spanish all figure. Though the course is not intended to provide a systematic in-depth analysis of the sound system of any individual language, there is enough basic material here to serve as the starting-point for subsequent language-specific Phonetics or Linguistics units.