The sounds of language: An introduction to phonetics and phonology by Elizabeth C. Zsiga (review)

Introduction

The sounds of language: An introduction to phonetics and phonology, by Elizabeth Zsiga, is a versatile introductory book intended for courses at the undergraduate and beginning graduate levels. In twenty concisely written chapters, Z introduces the learner to a detailed account of the pertinent concepts in both fields.

The textbook’s main strengths include its versatility and range of complexity and sophistication, its inclusion of detailed information about phonetic and phonological phenomena as well as the history of the two fields, and its elegant treatment of the interface.

In this textbook review, we provide a students’ perspective from a former undergraduate student who later acted as teaching assistant for the course, and an instructors’ perspective from two instructors who taught the course independently at the same institution.

Brief summary.

Z has arranged her book into five sections, the first of which is on articulatory phonetics (beginning on p. 1). The first chapter introduces the process of phonation and illustrates the anatomy of the vocal tract with a variety of imaging tools, including MRI, ultrasound, and x-ray. Ch. 2 dives into articulation and the unique set of articulatory characteristics that distinguishes each speech sound. Ch. 3 goes through the phonetic properties of the consonants of the world’s languages, with particular detail paid to articulatory characteristics of places and manners of articulation. Ch. 4 details the contrastive features of the vowel space, as well as other dimensions, including voice quality, length, and tone. Ch. 5 discusses more advanced physiology and activation of the articulators, with a focus on gestural scores and low-tech linguo- and palatograms.

The second section addresses topics in acoustic phonetics (beginning on p. 99). Ch. 6 explores the measurements of the physical properties of sound, and also includes a quick note on source-filter theory. Ch. 7 describes the history and current state of acoustic speech analysis, including a thorough explanation of how the physical properties of sound waves appear in digital visualizations. Ch. 8 plays off of the physics taught in Ch. 6 and presents a brief, advanced account of acoustic analysis. Ch. 9 changes focus to the physiology and psychology of perception, and serves as a bridge between acoustic phonetics and segmental phonology, which is the focus of the third section (beginning on p. 186).

The section on segmental phonology continues with Ch. 10, which introduces the fundamentals of phonological analysis, and Ch. 11, which discusses phonological rules and generalizations. Ch. 12 follows up with a discussion of subphonemic analysis. Ch. 13 reviews how phonological theories developed, starting with The sound pattern of English (Chomsky & Halle 1968), which leads into Ch. 14’s discussion of optimality theory.

The fourth section of this book concerns suprasegmental phonology (beginning on p. 330). Ch. 15 demonstrates syllabic structure and touches on sonority and prosodic hierarchies. Ch. 16 introduces metrical structure and crosslinguistic manifestations of linguistic stress, and leads into a discussion of tone, which is continued in Ch. 17.

Variation and change is the final set of topics covered (beginning on p. 401). Ch. 18 outlines the history of English phonology (and some morphology) and applies previous discussion of phonological rules to historical reconstruction. Ch. 19 introduces dialectal variation in World Englishes and sociolinguistic sources of dialect-internal variation. Ch. 20 wraps up with an overview of some popular psycholinguistic theories of L1 acquisition in comparison to L2 learning.

Students’ perspective.

Z lays out a general description of how sounds are produced, perceived, and analyzed. She assumes a beginner’s understanding of linguistics and begins with a detailed description of the vocal tract and its functions, while using language that is basic enough for a novice to understand, but she also includes and defines enough pertinent vocabulary to allow the reader to gain a solid foundation for further study in the field. The tone that Z sets is friendly and informative...