The late Peter Ladefoged, preeminent phonetician, founded the UCLA Phonetics Laboratory and was its director from 1962 to 1991. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1959. His major research interests included experimental phonetics and describing the sounds of the world's languages; his ground-breaking fieldwork took him to Europe, Africa, India, Australia, China, and elsewhere to record many languages. He was a member of many professional organizations and president of a few, including the International Phonetic Association (1986-1991) and the Linguistic Society of America (1980). He wrote extensively and was awarded many professional honors.

Part I: INTRODUCTORY CONCEPTS. 1. Articulation and Acoustics. Speech Production. Sound Waves. Places of Articulatory Gestures. The Oro-Nasal Process. Manners of Articulation. Stop. Fricative. Approximant. Lateral (Approximant). Additional Consonantal Gestures. The Waveforms of Consonants. The Articulation of Vowel Sounds. The Sounds of Vowels. Suprasegmentals. Exercises. 2. Phonology and Phonetic Transcription. The Transcription of Consonants. The Transcription of Vowels. Consonant and Vowel Charts. Phonology. Exercises. Performance Exercises. Part II. ENGLISH PHONETICS. 3. The Consonants of English. Stop Consonants. Fricatives. Affricates. Nasals. Approximants. Overlapping Gestures. Rules for English Consonant Allophones. Diacritics. Exercises. Performance Exercises. 4. English Vowels. Transcription and Phonetic Dictionaries. Vowel Quality. The Auditory Vowel Space. American and British Vowels. Diphthongs. Rhotic Vowels. Unstressed Syllables. Tense and Lax Vowels. Rules for English Vowel Allophones. Exercises. Performance Exercises. 5. English Words and Sentences. Words in Connected Speech. Stress. Degrees of Stress. Sentence Rhythm. Intonation. Target Tones. Exercises. Performance Exercises. Part III: GENERAL PHONETICS. 6. Airstream Mechanisms and Phonation Types. Airstream Mechanisms. States of the Glottis. Voice Onset Time. Summary of Actions of the Glottis. Exercises. Performance Exercises. 7. Consonantal Gestures. Articulatory Targets. Stops. Nasals. Types of Articulatory Gestures. Fricatives. Trills, Taps, and Flaps. Laterals. Summary of Manners of Articulation. Exercises. Performance Exercises. 8. Acoustic Phonetics. Source/Filter Theory. Tube Models. Perturbation Theory. Acoustic Analysis. Acoustics of Consonants. Interpreting Spectrograms. Individual Differences. Exercises. 9. Vowels and Vowel-like Articulations. Cardinal Vowels. Secondary Cardinal Vowels. Vowels in Other Accents of English. Vowels in Other Languages. Advanced Tongue Root. Rhotacized Vowels. Nasalization. Summary of Vowel Quality. Semivowels. Secondary Articulatory Gestures. Exercises. Performance Exercises. 10. Syllables and Suprasegmental Features. Syllables. Stress. Length. Timing. Intonation and Tone. Stress, Tone, and Pitch Accent Languages. Exercises. Performance Exercises. 11. Linguistic Phonetics. Phonetics of the Community and of the Individual. The International Phonetic Alphabet. Feature Hierarchy. A Problem with Linguistic Explanations. Controlling Articulatory Movements. Memory for Speech. The Balance between Phonetic Forces. Performance Exercises. Glossary. Further Reading. Index.