The Handbook of Phonetic Sciences: (Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics)

Since Malmberg's classic Manual of Phonetics published in 1968 there has been no definitive up-to-date account of the phonetic sciences. The Handbook of Phonetic Sciences is unique in that it brings together, in the same volume, chapters on the biological foundations of speech and hearing such as brain functions underlying speech, organic variation of the vocal apparatus, auditory neural processing, articulatory processes together with chapters on theoretical and applied areas.

Table of Contents:
Part I: Experimental Phonetics. 1. Laboratory techniques for investigating speech articulation (Maureen Stone, Johns Hopkins University). 2. The aerodynamics of speech (Christine H. Shadle, University of Southampton). 3. Acoustic phonetics (Osamu Fujimura and Donna Erickson, Ohio State University). 4. Investigating the physiology of laryngeal structures (Hajime Hirose, Kitasato University, Japan). 5. Instrumental techniques for linguistic phonetic fieldwork (Peter Ladefoged, UCLA). 6. Experimental design and statistics in speech science (William M. Shearer, Northern Illinois University). Part II: Biological Perspectives. 7. Motor speech disorders (Gary Weismer. University of Wisconsin). 8. Brain functions underlying speech (Ray D. Kent and Kristin Tjaden, University of Wisconsin-Madison). 9. Organic variation of the vocal apparatus (Janet MacKenzie Beck, Queen Margaret College, Edinburgh). Part III: Models of Speech Production and Perception. 10. Acquisition of speech (Peter F. MacNeilage, University of Texas at Austin). 11. Articulatory processes (Joseph S. Perkell, Massachusetts Institute of Technology). 12. Coarticulation and connected speech processes (Edda Farnetani, CNR, Padova). 13. Theories and models of speech production (Anders Lofqvist, Haskins Laboratories, Yale). 14. Voice source variation (Ailbhe Ni Chasaide and Christer Gobl, Trinity College, Dublin). 15. Articulatory/ acoustic/ auditory relationships (Kenneth N. Stevens, Massachusetts Institute of Technology). 16. Auditory neural processing of speech (Bertrand Delgutte, Massachusetts Institute of Technology). 17. Aspects of auditory processing related to speech perception (Brian C. J. Moore, University of Cambridge). 18. Cognitive processes in speech perception (James M. McQueen and Anne Cutler, Max-Planck-Institute, Nijmegen). Part IV: Linguistic Phonetics. 19. Linguistic phonetic descriptions (Peter Ladefoged, UCLA). 20. Phonetic universals (Ian Maddieson, UCLA). 21. Prosody of speech: melody and rhythm (Sieb Nooteboom, Rijkuniversiteit te Utrecht). 22. The relation between phonetics and phonology (John J. Ohala, University of California at Berkeley). Part V: Speech Technology. 23. Speech signal processing (Johan Liljencrants, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm). 24. Some approaches to automatic speech recognition (William A. Ainsworth, University of Keele). 25. Speaker recognition and forensic phonetics (Francis Nolan, University of Cambridge). 26. Speech synthesis (Rolf Carlson and Bjorn Granstrom, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm). Bibliography. Index.

About the Author :
William J. Hardcastle is Professor of Speech Sciences and Head of the Department of Speech and Language Sciences at Queen Margaret College, Edinburgh. From 1974 until 1993 he worked in the Department of Linguistic Science at Reading University where he was Professor of Speech Science and Director of Speech Research Laboratory. He has published books and articles in a number of different areas of speech science including the mechanisms of speech production and sensori-motor control in both normal and pathological speech. He is Fellow of the Institute of Acoustics and has been President of the International Association of Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics since 1991. John Laver is Professor of Phonetics at the University of Edinburgh, where he was Vice-Principal of the University with Special responsibility for research from 1994 to 1997. He was the founding Chairman of the Humanities Research Board of the British Academy from 1994 to 1998, and is Fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Institute of Acoustics. He has held visiting posts at the University of California at Los Angeles, and at Macquarie University, Australia. He was the President of the International Phonetic Association from 1991 to 1995. He has published widely in phonetics, speech science and speech technology, and is the author The Phonetic Description of Voice Quality (1980); The Gift of Speech (1991); and Principles of Phonetics (1994).

Review :
"This is an important book, which does much to make accessible the current state of knowledge in an increasingly significant discipline." Times Higher Education Supplement "The editors are to be congratulated on putting together a very useful book. They have selected topics that represent the wide-ranging interests of phoneticians, invited recognised experts to write on these topics, and coordinated the contributions so that the volume is a coherant whole. This book belongs on the shelf of any serious phonetician, and linguists in general should be aware that is it available to provide a source of recent informantion about most areas of phonetic research." Frances Ingemann, University of Kansas "The previous criticisms not withstanding, The Handbook of Phonetic Sciences is a most welcome and needed reference to this very active field. It should prove an invaluable aid to graduate students starting research projects, to active investigators who are planning to extend their research to a new area in the field, and as a general reference for professionals in the many areas that are now part of the broadly defined phonetic sciences. It will certainly not gather dust on this reviewers bookshelf." H. T Bunnell, University of Delaware