Phonetic Data Analysis: An Introduction to Fieldwork and Instrumental Techniques

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.

Preface. Acknowledgments. 1. Recording The Sounds Of A Language:. Deciding What To Record. Finding Speakers. Recording Systems. Making A Recording. Digital Recording. Listening To Recordings. Field Notes. Instrumental Phonetic Techniques. 2. Finding The Places Of Articulation: . Still And Video Photography. Basic Palatography. More Elaborate Palatography. Electropalatography. Further Reading. 3. Aerodynamic Investigations:. Recording Air Pressure And Airflow. Measuring Air Pressure And Airflow. Interpreting Aerodynamic Records. Quantifying Nasalization. Phonation Types. Electroglottography. Further Reading. 4. Pitch, Loudness And Length: . Pitch Analysis. Interpreting Pitch Curves. Loudness, Intensity And Stress. Waveforms And The Measurement Of Duration. Further Reading. 5. Characterizing Vowels: . Sound Spectrograms. Spectra. Vowel Charts. Nasalized Vowels. Further Reading. 6. Acoustic Analysis Of Consonants: . Waveforms, Spectrograms And Duration Measurements. Spectral Characteristics Of Nasals, Laterals, Approximants And Trills. Fricatives And Stop Bursts. Spectrograms And Place Of Articulation. Spectrograms And Articulatory Movements. Further Reading. 7. Acoustic Analysis Of Phonation Types: . Waveforms Of Different Glottal States. Spectral Characteristics Of Phonation Types. Further Reading. 8. Coda: . A General Purpose Phonetics Laboratory. More Elaborate Instrumental Phonetic Techniques. Saying Goodbye To Fieldwork. Index.

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).

"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 <!––end––> " 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