An Introduction to English Phonetics

The book is dedicated to the non-native learners of English and as such is planned to solve the problems they face in learning English pronunciation. It covers the whole of the present curricula followed in various universities and English language teaching institutes. It is specially meant for postgraduate and under-graduate students of phonetics and those undergoing various teacher’s training programmes in English. The book presents the rules of word accentuation. Syllable break-up and intonation in exhaustive terms, and illustrates these rules and the exceptions there to by giving phonemic transcription. It introduces general phonetics, general phonology and gives a very thorough description of the phonetics and phonology of English. It also presents for the first time a comparative study of the following: British English and American English, British English and General Indian English, General Indian English and American English. Numerous figures, tables and charts have been used in the book as illustrations. The figures are given in the simplest possible form so that the students can easily learn to draw them for the examination purpose. At the end of the book are given a number of conversational passages in phonemic script as well as in ordinary spelling for practice in reading aloud. A distinctive feature of the book is the simplicity and lucidity with which it explains each item. It makes frequent use of phonemic and phonetic transcriptions to illustrate the points. Maine Features: the book contains more than sixty figures and two hundred tables and charts as illustrations, It makes extensive use of phonemic transcription, It contains sufficient practice material, Numerous exercises are given at end of chapters, IPA chart revised to 1993 is provided.