Applying Phonetics. Murray J. Munro

Applying Phonetics

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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data applied for

9781119164548 (Paper back); 9781119164555 (ePDF); 9781119164562 (epub)

Cover Design: Wiley

Cover Image: © Tongho58/Getty Images

For Alan

Foreword

I wrote this book to share my passion for phonetics with students, colleagues, and anyone else wanting to know more about the fascinating applications of the speech sciences. It is designed to appeal to students with little or no background in linguistics or phonetics. In my experience, beginning students appreciate an overview of the field to help them decide which sub‐areas they find most interesting and which ones they might choose to pursue in more advanced studies. The content is based on an introductory course called “The Science of Speech” that I developed and have taught at Simon Fraser University for over a decade. The course has been popular with students, but has kept me very busy. Each semester, I've changed the material to keep up with a constant stream of new research findings and to highlight fascinating news stories that draw the public eye to phonetics. The result of this constant updating is that nearly half the sources I've cited here had not even been published at the time I first taught the course.

How to use this book

The content is organized into three parts. Part I: What Is Speech? is designed to be as succinct as possible, serving as an outline of the essentials of phonetics. It introduces speech anatomy, along with the major technical terms used in speech description. Part II: Speech as a Human Phenomenon covers the origins of speech, aspects of acquisition and change from the pre‐natal stage to old age, and diseases and disorders that hamper speech's functioning. Part III: Applying Phonetics, comprising well over half the book, surveys applications in such diverse fields as education, the arts, forensics, and business. I have arranged the material so that the chapters in Parts II and III can be read in almost any order. Key concepts are explained within their relevant contexts, though occasionally the reader is referred to other sections for more details. Terms highlighted in SMALL CAPS are defined in the Glossary at the end of the book. For those with no background in linguistics, I recommend reading Part I before moving on to the later material. Finally, the accompanying APSSEL website features extensive additional information, including links to sources that readers will find informative and intriguing.

Acknowledgments

This volume would never have been completed without the enthusiasm and feedback of hundreds of students who participated in my classes, asked probing questions and even sent me e‐mail messages years later to tell me about fascinating speech‐related news stories they had come across. To all of them, my heartfelt thanks.

I am also deeply appreciative of the help I received from Tanya McMullin at Wiley‐Blackwell, who was enthusiastic and encouraging, as well as Mohan Jayachandran, Merryl Le Roux, Tim West and Aneetta Antony.

A number of readers provided me with helpful feedback on all or part of the manuscript. First among these is my long‐time colleague and friend, Tracey Derwing, whose patience and support were invaluable. Sincere appreciation is also due to another friend and colleague, John Levis, for his generous, tactful appraisal. His comments, along with those of Jason Brown and Adam Brown, rescued me from several embarrassing blunders. Of course, all remaining errors are my own. Finally, I thank my spouse Alan Borden – a deft wordsmith and sounding board extraordinaire – for reading and lending his critical eye to multiple drafts.

About the Companion Website

This book is accompanied by a companion website:

www.wiley.com/go/munro

The website includes:

Sound files

1 Introducing Phonetics : The Science of Speech

Speech is the most fundamental means of human communication. Nearly all of us—with the exception of the profoundly deaf and people with severe cognitive dysfunction—begin learning to speak during the early stages of childhood and continue to use spoken language as a mode of interaction. It is mainly through speech that we establish and develop our most important personal attachments, acquire the cultural competence that allows us to function as members of society, and pass on our wisdom to our offspring.

An especially fascinating aspect of speech is that it appears to be a uniquely human capability. Other social animals engage with their communities in a variety of ways, and we humans often talk affectionately to our canine and feline companions. But non‐human animals don't use anything quite like speech with one another; nor do they carry on spoken interactions with us. The importance of speech as a social tool and its status as a defining characteristic of humanness have made phonetics a dynamic and fruitful area of study since ancient times. In fact, the phonetician John Ohala (2006) suggests that phonetics may be the oldest of the behavioral sciences and, in many respects, one of the most successful. Its value is evident in the wide range of useful things we can do because of speech‐related research and technological innovations. You might not think of the telephone, for instance, as a product of phonetics, but its invention has revolutionized our lives because Alexander Graham Bell devoted his life to the study of speech. Even more impressive are today's artificial talking agents, which can read web pages aloud for people with visual disabilities and provide a voice to those who, like the late Stephen Hawking, have lost the ability to speak. The reverse situation is also becoming a practical reality in the form of computer applications that accept speech input and follow instructions to help us complete daily tasks. It is less well known to the public that criminal investigations sometimes employ forensic phonetics during the collection of evidence leading to the conviction of offenders. On the medical front, advances in the study of speech anatomy and physiology have led to effective remediation for many types of vocal tract injuries, language delays, and speech disorders. And with respect to language preservation and revitalization, linguists are able to apply phonetic principles along with speech technology to systematically document the sound patterns of endangered languages.

Applying Phonetics. Murray J. Munro