Phonetics: Principles and Practices, Third Edition, introduces students to the study of speech sounds and explains why the study is important and necessary. This text is a launching point for study in the field of phonetics. It introduces readers to the key elements in phonetic study, providing an overview of phonetic transcription, anatomy of speech production and perception, the physics of sound, properties of vowels, diphthongs, and consonants, stress and intonation, and connected speech.
One of the strengths of this text is the variety of exercises, which are designed with student self-learning in mind. Chapters include fill-in-the-blank, true/false, multiple choice, and transcription reading and writing exercises.