An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English [antikvár]

FOREWORD The phonetic detail of the pronunciation of British English has already been described in several excellent works, notably those of Daniel Jones. This present book, written after a number of years of teaching the spoken language both to English students and to foreign learners, sets out to place the phonetics of British English in a larger framework than has been customary. For this reason, emphasis is given to the function of the spoken medium as a form of communication. Some treatment of the historical background and the linguistic implications of the present sound system is included, as well as information concerning the acoustic nature of English sounds. Those sections in Part II, in which detailed descriptions of the realizations of phonemes are given, deal with spelling forms, articulatory and acoustic features, variants and chief historical sources. In addition, throughout Parts II and III, général advice to the foreign learner is included. The book is intended to serve as a général introduction to the subject which will encourage the reader to consult more specialized works on particular aspects. Though my own views and observations intrude both in the material and in its présentation, much of the information given is derived from the numerous sources quoted in the Bibliography. In particular, new évaluations, which seem to me to reflect more nearly the current trend of RP forms, are made of the phonetic characteristics of certain phonemes. In the acoustic field, where so much remains to be investigated and where research proceeds so rapidly, an attempt has been made to sum up the results of work done in the post-war period, though many of the conclusions must as yet be regarded as tentative. It was tempting to apply to British English a logical, elegant, and economical phonemic analysis such as is now commonplace in the United States, involving a very much simplified phonemic notation. If this has not been done, it is mainly because a type of analysis was required which was explicit on the phonetic level as well as reasonably tidy on the phonemic level ; it seemed easier, for instance, to deal with phonetic developments and variants in terms of the largely traditional (for British English) transcription which has been used. Throughout the book, the influence of my teachers, Professor Daniel Jones and Dr. H. N. Coustenoble, will be obvious. To them my sincere thanks are due, not only for their teaching over the past twenty-five