A LITTLE ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF PHONETICS
Peter Roach Professor of Phonetics University of Reading, UK.
email: p.j.roach@reading.ac.uk Website: http://www.personal.reading.ac.uk/~llsroach/peter/ 2002 This book is aimed at first-year students of Phonetics. It is based on a book I wrote which was published in 1992. The book, which had the title Introducing Phonetics, has now been deleted from the publisher's list. The title was misleading: this is not an introduction to Phonetics but a series of short explanations of technical terms used in the subject. I have, in fact, written what I hope is a truly introductory textbook on Phonetics for Oxford University Press in the series Oxford Introductions to Language Study, edited by Henry Widdowson, which was published in 2001. Its title is Phonetics. Many of the examples in this encyclopaedia are from English (as spoken in England). Although I would have liked to use a lot more examples from other languages, English is relevant and familiar for the majority of users of the book. For further detail of the phonetics of English, please see my English Phonetics and Phonology (Cambridge University Press: 3rd Edition, 2000). At the end, I have added a list of recommended reading. Since I feel that this little encyclopaedia still has some use, I have updated and rewritten the material from the earlier book, and hope that it will be useful to students in getting to grips with terminology in Phonetics. In keeping with the practice in the earlier book, I have printed in bold type words which are defined elsewhere in the book. I would be grateful for suggestions on how to improve it. The nice thing about books in electronic form is that improvements and corrections can be made immediately. Peter Roach