29.945, Review: Phonetics: McKinney, McKinney (2017)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-29-945. Wed Feb 28 2018. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 29.945, Review: Phonetics: McKinney, McKinney (2017)

Moderators: linguist at linguistlist.org (Damir Cavar, Malgorzata E. Cavar)
Reviews: reviews at linguistlist.org (Helen Aristar-Dry, Robert Coté,
                                   Michael Czerniakowski)
Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:
           http://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/

Editor for this issue: Clare Harshey <clare at linguistlist.org>
================================================================


Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2018 13:53:19
From: Samson Lotven [slotven at indiana.edu]
Subject: An Introduction to Field Phonetics

 
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36333837


Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/28/28-2861.html

AUTHOR: Norris P. McKinney
AUTHOR: Carol V. McKinney
TITLE: An Introduction to Field Phonetics
PUBLISHER: SIL International Publications
YEAR: 2017

REVIEWER: Samson Alexander Lotven, Indiana University Bloomington

REVIEWS EDITOR: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY

In “An Introduction to Field Phonetics,”  authors Norris P. McKinney and Carol
B. McKinney offer a textbook on articulatory phonetics, aimed at preparing
researchers to describe in detail the articulatory variation encountered in
the field. The primary audience for this introduction is the novice
phonetician planning to work with speakers of an undescribed language or
dialect. In addition, the authors further intend to present an overview that
would be useful to anyone looking to understand a broad range of topics in
articulatory phonetics. In pursuing this concern, the authors present
stand-alone sections on natural classes of speech sounds (or groups of like
phenomena) and their diverse phonetic realizations, as well as sections on
field methodology, including one section on palatography and one on acoustic
phonetics.

The first three chapters lay the groundwork for the book, introducing its
purpose and then presenting the basics of speech anatomy and the feature
system used to describe speech sounds. Chapters 4-19 offer the basics of
phonetic description including sections divided largely by manner of
articulation (e.g. 4. Fricatives; 5. Stops; 11.Nasals), a couple on
characteristics of certain places of articulation (14. Palatal, Velar, and
Uvular Consonants; 18. Voiced and Voiceless Glottal Consonants), some
suprasegmental phenomena (9. Pitch and Intonation; 10. Tone; 16. Length), and
one longer section devoted to vowels (Chapter 6). Chapters 20-30 then discuss
more advanced topics in articulatory phonetics such as multiple articulations
(20. Double Stop and Double Nasal Articulations; 21. Secondary Articulations),
non-pulmonic speech sounds (24. Ejectives and Implosives; 29. Clicks), more
nuanced descriptions of previous topics (26. Fronted and Retroflexed
Consonants: Comprehensive Framework for Places of Articulation), as well as
other stand-alone topics. The last four chapters deal with expectations and
best practices for fieldwork (31. Speech Variants, Accents, Dialects, and
Sociophonetics; 34. Phonetic Fieldwork), palatography (Chapter 32), and
acoustic phonetics (Chapter 33). Each chapter features summary tables and
illustrations, a list of terms, and exercises for student practice. All
illustrations are adapted or reprinted from Wikipedia and all terms can be
found in a glossary in the back of the book. The majority of the exercise sets
ask the reader to pronounce challenging real or fake words to develop
intuition and sensitivity. Some questions also ask the reader to restate
information found in the chapter, draw sagittal diagrams, or write the names
of speech sounds. Supplementary review questions for Chapters 1-30 are
provided in Appendix C. 

EVALUATION

This textbook has the most to offer to courses in Articulatory Phonetics or
Field Phonetics where students are trained by transcribing audio recordings or
by working with a native speaker assistant to describe the sound system of a
language. The simple, modular presentation of this book also makes it suitable
as a reference or as supplemental reading for an Introductory Phonetics or
Field Methods course. In addition, it would also be useful for individual
study since it is presented straightforwardly and works to actively engage the
reader. The charts and tables offered in this book, those from Wikipedia and
those created by the authors, are generally clearly printed and helpful, and
the book takes care to offer sagittal diagrams in every section. The attention
paid to accurate and descriptive sagittal diagrams reinforces the book’s
emphasis on articulatory introspection. Students using this book as a
reference in drawing their own sagittal diagrams will find clear instructions
and plenty of illustrative examples. Chapters often contain summary tables,
which are filled with useful information for reference, but often require some
deciphering and could use some shading or other formatting to manage the
amount of material condensed within. Chapter topics get gradually more
advanced, but are loosely ordered, offering the instructor or individual
reader the flexibility to select relevant topics and to use the text as a
reference when eliciting data on specific types of phonetic phenomena from a
language assistant. A linguist or anthropologist preparing for fieldwork by
working through this text will become familiar with the myriad phonetic
variation found in the world’s languages and will be offered advice on
research, preparation, and data collection techniques. This book’s authors
make the most of their conversations with other phoneticians—particularly the
anecdotes of Dr. Kenneth Pike and Dr. Peter Ladefoged, to whom the book is
dedicated—and their experience in the field, offering anecdotes and tips
throughout. Chapter 15 (Laterals), for example, notes Norris McKinney’s
discovery that he only made velar laterals, helping to make sure that if the
reader does not relate to a specific illustrative English pronunciation, it is
at least clear that such variation is expected. 

Each chapter offers general information on its topic as well as clarification
of confusable concepts and useful conventions, but the authors also speak
directly to the reader, asking for active reading, practice, and
introspection. Most such engagement is designed to make English-speaking
readers more conscious of their own biases and more careful in their own
productions of non-native sounds. In some cases, chapters include additional
‘Experiments,’ which ask readers to observe themselves using their vocal
apparatuses in unfamiliar ways, such as watching their velum rise and fall in
a hand mirror while alternating productions of nasalized and non-nasalized
vowels (Chapter 12, Experiment 12.1). The articulatory challenges highlighted
in a chapter are reinforced in that chapter’s  pronunciation exercises that
immediately follow. Furthermore, previously discussed sounds are incorporated
into later pronunciation exercises, which increase in complexity and
specificity throughout the book. Exercises are tailored to accustom the
English-speaking reader to unfamiliar sounds such as labial-velars in Chapter
20 and unfamiliar phonotactics such as initial velar nasals in Chapter 11.
These pronunciation activities are potentially useful to students trying
consciously to overcome their own struggles to produce unfamiliar sounds, but
with no accompanying audio tracks, it would be difficult for the reader to
check whether an attempted production is successful. A course taught by a
trained phonetician could get around this shortcoming with instructor-produced
utterances in class or in audio recordings, but the reader engaged in
individual study will have a difficult time verifying pronunciations,
particularly in data sets exemplifying typologically odd distinctions such as
the 3-way laryngeal contrast in Korean voiceless stops (Chapter 30). As
confirmed by the publisher, no recordings of the book’s pronunciation
exercises exist, but there is some hint that such an audio companion was at
one time expected to accompany this textbook as Chapter 26 asks the reader to
practice pronunciations “on the CD” (p.155). Audio tracks would certainly be a
boon to readers of future editions and would greatly improve the audience
engagement that is so central to this textbook’s pedagogical ethos. In some
cases, chapters work around the lack of an audio companion by grounding the
reader in English sounds. For example, after describing the basic mechanism of
click production in Chapter 29 the authors devote some time to mentioning
clicks present but not incorporated into the sound system of English and other
languages, such as the English kissing sound and the “tsk, tsk” sound. This
method is directed at the reader, encouraging establishment of the intuition
and awareness required to recognize and transcribe variation in the field.
Convention and variation in transcription is also discussed, such as the
choice of [pp] or [p:] in the treatment of geminate consonants in Chapter 25.
Having accurate phonetic transcriptions for the sake of phonological analysis
is the major concern of this textbook, so such discussions are useful in
teasing phonetics from phonology for the reader new to this distinction.

The last several chapters of this text are devoted to methodology. Chapter 31
(Speech Variants, Accents, Dialects, and Sociophonetics) serves to prepare the
reader’s expectations about inter- and intra-speaker variation. Next, Chapter
32 offers a useful discussion on when and how to use palatography, impressing
on the reader the ease and usefulness of the practice, especially in the
field. Chapter 33 is a brief look at acoustic phonetics. This section covers a
lot of material very quickly and the printing of some of the acoustic diagram
images is blurry, which is especially problematic during the discussion of
spectrograms, which are printed with no markings save horizontal lines marking
intervals of 1000Hz. This section does serve to reinforce one general message
of the book, that “a consonant is just one way to end (or begin) a vowel”
(p.204), however the pace is likely too rapid for individual study or an
introductory course, so supplemental materials on acoustic phonetic are
necessary. The final chapter (34) is devoted to best practices, expectations,
and adaptation in the field. It offers advice drawn from experience on
practical preparation, doing preliminary research, forming research questions,
interacting with local language assistants, and purchasing audio equipment. 

This textbook delivers on its goal of introducing students to articulation
through introspection and practice. Instructors of phonetic field methods
courses using this textbook as the central resource will need to supplement it
with other materials on acoustic phonetics. Other courses, particularly those
on general linguistic field methods or introductory phonetics, could
profitably use this book as a supplement. A linguist or anthropologist
preparing for a trip to the field or even an actor or dialect coach looking to
dive deeper into articulation will find this book useful for either self-study
or reference. In all cases, the lack of an audio companion will need to be
overcome before many of the exercises in this book will be useful to the
reader. Many of the “experiments” in this book are designed to work around
this limitation, and in some cases may do more than audio recordings to coax
the reader into unfamiliar tongue positions. Norris P. and Carol V. McKinney
do well to pass on their knowledge of field phonetic work onto the next
generation of linguists; it is unfortunate that the first author passed prior
to its printing.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Samson Lotven is a PhD candidate at Indiana University-Bloomington,
specializing in the phonetics and phonology of understudied languages.





------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*****************    LINGUIST List Support    *****************
Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:
            http://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/
 


----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-29-945	
----------------------------------------------------------