Since the first edition was published in 1954, this outstanding work has consistently served as a comprehensive yet easy-to-follow guidebook to general American phonetics. Included are chapters dealing with the transcription of on-going speech, narrow transcription, normal and deviant allophones and information on how speech sounds are produced, as well as an examination of the linguistic principles that have come to play a prominent role in modern speech pathology. The application of phonemics and phonetics to the understanding of the problems of deviant speech and language, foreign accent, and dialect enhance reader comprehension in these areas.
Top Grammar is a new four-level grammar series that follows the syllabus of To The Top/ American To The Top coursebooks. It can be used at any other coursebook as well.
A'lthough I started to write this'little booklet only in .|985, it actually began 35 years ear'lier - one winter evening in .|950 at Indiana University. There at one of the sess'ions of the Ethno- Linguistics Seminar (the periodic meeting ground of all the facu'lty and students in linguistics), Henry Lee Smith, Jr. presented the analysis of English sounds that he and George Trager were soon to publish. The part of thejr ana'lysis that dealt with pitch, stress, and juncture seized my attention that evening and has never let go.
This book deals with the pronunciation of English in the United States, and is designed primarily for elementary courses in phonetics. It should also be useful in courses dealing with the improvement or correction of voice and speech. Chapters 21 to 23 should be useful in an advanced course in linguistic geography.
Two principles underlie the presentation of the subject matter. One is that the distinctive sound unit, or phoneme, as discussed in Chapter 1, is basic to our understanding of speech. English, like any other language; rests on basic phonemic patterns, but not all varieties of English use exactly the same pattern.
This introduction to the pronunciation of American English describes the sound system, suggests ways of tackling pronunciation problems, and provides a variety of techniques and exercises for use in the classroom.
