Phonetic Data Analysis - by Peter Ladefoged (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

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.

• 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.
  
• Enables readers to work with a speaker in class or go out into the field and make their own discoveries about how the sounds of a language are made.
  
• Provides full descriptions of techniques that are readily available and do not require the resources of a major phonetics laboratory.
  
• Includes enlightening comments throughout about Ladefoged's own fieldwork experiences.

From the Back Cover

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.

Review Quotes

"This is a wonderful book - one we have all been waiting for, perhaps without knowing it, and one that will make us wonder how we ever did without it. I look forward to recommending it to anyone undertaking an instrumental phonetic investigation." Nina Grønnum, University of Copenhagen

"Phonetic Data Analysis is one of the most useful linguistics books written in the last 25 years. With his trademark clarity of thought and expression, Peter Ladefoged has written a book that is sure to be a classic. Every field linguist should own a copy of this book. I plan to carry it with me and follow its suggestions in all my future field research in the Amazon." Dan Everett, University of Manchester

"Peter Ladefoged is widely acknowledged as the world's leading phonetician. I warmly recommend this unique and remarkable new book to students and professionals interested in phonetic fieldwork or experimental phonetics. It is deeply practical and very easy to understand; it is also full of illuminating personal experience from a lifetime of investigating hundreds of languages in every inhabited continent." John Laver, Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh

"This is a very useful and personal book. Peter Ladefoged brings us along for a phonetic field trip where serious research is always interspersed with the joy of getting to know one another. This book will show you how to make your own palatography mirrors (ask a mirror-maker for help!) and how doing phonetics really well can make for a fascinating life." Keith Johnson, Ohio State University

About the Author

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).