16.3480, Review: Phonetics/Clinical Ling: Ball & Muller (2005)

[LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-16-3480. Tue Dec 06 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.3480, Review: Phonetics/Clinical Ling: Ball & Muller (2005)

Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Wayne State U <aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry at linguistlist.org>
 
Reviews (reviews at linguistlist.org) 
        Sheila Dooley, U of Arizona  
        Terry Langendoen, U of Arizona  

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org/

The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, Wayne
State University, and donations from subscribers and publishers.

Editor for this issue: Lindsay Butler <lindsay at linguistlist.org>
================================================================  

What follows is a review or discussion note contributed to our 
Book Discussion Forum. We expect discussions to be informal and 
interactive; and the author of the book discussed is cordially 
invited to join in. If you are interested in leading a book 
discussion, look for books announced on LINGUIST as "available 
for review." Then contact Sheila Dooley at dooley at linguistlist.org. 

===========================Directory==============================  

1)
Date: 05-Dec-2005
From: Rita Mathur < ritamathur at yahoo.com >
Subject: Phonetics for Communication Disorders 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Tue, 06 Dec 2005 23:00:41
From: Rita Mathur < ritamathur at yahoo.com >
Subject: Phonetics for Communication Disorders 
 

AUTHORS: Ball, Martin J.; Muller, Nicole
TITLE: Phonetics for Communication Disorders
PUBLISHER: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
YEAR: 2005
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-2518.html 

Rita Mathur, Visiting faculty member, AYJ National Institute for Hearing 
Handicapped, and SNDT University, Mumbai, India.

The book has three parts. Part 1 (Chapters 1-9) deals with General 
Phonetics, part two (Chapters 10-18) with English Phonetics, and part 
three (Chapters 19-20) with Disordered Speech. An audio CD is 
provided along with the book. Two appendices containing IPA (rev 
1993) along with extra IPA symbols for disordered speech (rev. 2002) 
and voice quality symbols (VoQS), are included. Moreover, Distinctive 
features, Phonological Primes for English and Natural phonological 
processes, are included in the body of the book. Solutions to audio 
CD transcription exercises are given in the end of the book. Each 
chapter is supported by exercises and a further reading list. 

CHAPTER-BY-CHAPTER SUMMARY

Chapter 1  ''Phonetic Description'': This chapter introduces 
the ''speech chain'', highlighting the three main areas of study within 
phonetics: the study of speech production, the study of speech 
transmission, and the study of speech reception or perception. Thus, 
it deals with articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonetics and auditory 
phonetics, respectively. The authors have introduced speech chains 
in a simple manner. Diagrammatically shown speech chain candidly 
manifests the 'Production ability' (P), 'Hearing ability' (H) and 
the 'Creative ability' (C) which is active in both speaker and listener 
throughout the communication process. 

Chapter 2  ''The organs of speech'' deals with the vocal tract. The 
vocal tract is defined as the entire respiratory system from the lungs 
up to the oral cavity and nasal cavity, and the vocal organs within the 
vocal tract having primary functions not connected to speech. The 
difference is being brought out precisely between the vocal tract and 
vocal organs. 

Chapter 3  ''Initiation of an Air stream'' introduces the aerodynamics of 
the air stream initiation and principle types of air stream mechanisms. 

Chapter 4  ''Phonation and Voice Quality'' explains various aspects of 
the phonation and supralaryngeal aspects of voice quality. 

Chapter 5  ''Description of vowels'' introduces articulatory, acoustic 
and perceptual aspects of vowels. All the cardinal vowels are 
described in the chapter and accompanying CD gives the audio 
version of the vowels. In this manner, the learner gets hands on 
session to know the pronunciation of the vowels. 

Chapter 6  ''Articulation: Consonant Manner Types''. This chapter 
covers a detail introduction of Stops, both Oral and Nasal. Fricatives, 
Affricates, Approximants, Trills and Taps, Obstruents and Sonorants. 

Chapter 7  ''Articulation: Consonants Place Types''. This chapter 
encompasses place of articulation. The terms like Labial, Anterior, 
Lingual, Dorsal, and Posterior are explained with the help of diagrams 
making the chapter very conducive. Authors have included acoustic 
description of consonants along with the articulatory description. 

Chapter 8  ''More on Consonants''. This chapter broadens the horizon 
of articulation by introducing modified oral stops and multiple 
articulations. The acoustic characteristics are dealt with in the same 
chapter. The chapter concludes with an IPA chart. Audio demonstration 
of released, non released and affricated release is very conducive. 
Demonstration also includes co articulation and secondary 
articulation. 

Chapter 9  ''Suprasegmental Phonetics'' introduces Stress, Length, 
pitch, Boundary effects and other prosodic features along with there 
acoustic characteristics. In a clinical setting, the identification of stress 
placement is very important when the speech is highly unintelligible. 
Thus, a systematic description of 'prosody' and 'dysprosody' is 
included. 

Chapter 10  ''Phonetics and Phonological Description'' highlights the 
salient features of English phonetics and phonology bringing out the 
differential phonological systems and structures. 

Chapter 11  ''Monophthongs of English'' introduces the high front, 
lower back and high back vowels. The transcription is well included in 
the end.

Chapter 12  ''English Central Vowels and Diphthongs'' introduces non 
rhotic central vowels, rhotic central vowels, the mid closing 
diphthongs, the low closing diphthongs, the fronting closing 
diphthongs and the centering diphthongs substantially. 

Chapter 13  ''English Plosive and Affricates'' converses about the 
bilabial, alveolar, velar plosives ; the post alveolar affricates and the 
glottal stop.

Chapter 14  ''English Fricatives'' introduces the labiodentals, dental, 
alveolar, post alveolar, and glottal fricatives. 

Chapter 15  ''English Sonorant Consonants'' discusses the nasal 
stops, liquid approximants and semi vowel approximants. 

Chapter 16  ''Words and connected speech'' elaborates English word 
stress, stress in connected speech. It also deals with a few 
phonological processes like, assimilation, elision and liaison, and 
juncture. 

Chapter 17  ''Intonation of English'' introduces Nuclear Tones and post 
nuclear patterns, prenuclear tunes, and intonation tunes. 

Chapter 18  ''Varieties of English''. This chapter highlights the ways in 
which accent can differ. Substantial information is given on national 
varieties of English, regional differences in American English and 
Spanish influenced English. Keeping so many varieties what could be 
the possible phonological problems for the learners of English is also 
discussed. 

Chapter 19  ''Phonological and Phonetic Disorders''. This part of the 
book deals with the terms phonetics and phonology in the description 
of the disordered speech. 

Chapter 20  ''Transcribing Atypical and Disordered Speech'' 
elaborates most of the possible aspects of atypical and disordered 
speech. Elaborates atypical places and manners of articulation, 
voicing. Authors have tried to resolve the uncertainty in transcription. 

EVALUATION

The intended audience of this book is described as ''the students who 
will go into becoming speech language pathologists''. This book is also 
useful, firstly for speech pathologists that have to be conversant in 
speech science, secondly for students of linguistics learning 
phonetics, and thirdly for linguists who are interested in varieties of 
English, perhaps for pedagogical reasons. Even speech pathologists 
have to be conversant with the dialectal variations of the language, 
mainly because they should not analyze a variation as a speech 
disorder. 

There are many concepts which are distinguished in the book. For 
instance, the authors emphasize the difference between vocal tract 
and vocal organs. The vocal tract is defined as the entire respiratory 
system from the lungs up to the oral cavity and nasal cavity, and vocal 
organs within the vocal tract having primary functions that are not 
connected to speech. Moreover, the vocal tract is that through which 
air is drawn ('tract' is cognate with 'tractor' and refers to pulling 
something) when we speak. Although this description is consistent 
with those given by Ladefoged (2001) and Laver (1994), the 
emphasis on the difference between the two is helpful for a beginner 
to acquire the concepts without any ambiguity. Moreover, the authors 
have elaborated the description of the respiratory, laryngeal and 
supra-laryngeal systems in such a way that a student can understand 
and grasp the subject without any difficulty. Another salient feature of 
the book is that it treats both the articulatory and acoustic properties 
of sounds. The concepts are well illustrated with ample figures and 
diagrams. Finally, the authors have elucidated the principles of air 
pressure along with their relevant locations with examples. The 
description of initiators, compression and rarefaction, and By using the 
CD, readers can get good training in recognizing and pronouncing 
ejective, implosive and click sounds. 

Since phonation and voice quality both are important aspects for 
speech language pathologists, the authors have described difficulties 
regarding voice quality in detail. The explanation of phonation types is 
supported by plenty of diagrams and illustrations, inclusive of 
articulatory, physiological and acoustic dimensions. A detailed 
description of the location of the phonatory activities is included. 
These activities may take place in the anterior portion of the vocal 
folds, some may take place in the posterior portion and some may 
take place all along the folds. An audio presentation in CD for all these 
activities gives a clear description of normal, ventricular and 
diplophonia or double voice types. An audio demonstration of falsetto 
phonation is not included, as this has no linguistic use. All other types 
of phonations are demonstrated. 

The system and structure of English is dealt with at length, enabling a 
speech language pathologist to master the structural and functional 
aspects of English phonetics. The sounds that are covered are 
recorded on the CD as a part of the exercises. Solutions for the 
exercises are given in the end of the book. A very good audio 
demonstration of non-pulmonic and pulmonic sounds clearly manifests 
their respective articulatory gestures. To me it appeared as a sort of 
hands-on session in phonetic training. Besides this, central and lateral 
fricatives are also very well demonstrated.

The book includes a substantial discussion of clinical phonology, 
including aspects of 'atypical' and 'disordered' speech. Atypical 
speech is defined as clients using sounds that have not been 
recorded in natural language or found rarely. On the other hand, 
disordered speech covers disruptions at the phonological and 
phonetic level. Compare Crystal (1981), who defines ''phonological 
disability'' as an abnormal phonological system with a normal phonetic 
realization, and ''phonetic disability'' when the phonological system is 
normal but its phonetic realization is abnormal. Both disabilities may 
be present simultaneously. Grunwell (1977) defines phonological 
disability simply as ''the use of abnormal patterns in the spoken 
system''. In atypical speech, consonants may be produced using a 
variety of atypical places and manners of articulation, but atypical 
vowels are not found. Even if the vowels are produced within the 
vowel space when the tongue tip and body are protruded, still the 
articulation of the vowels would be within the vowel area. Finally, the 
description of the extra IPA symbols for the transcription of disordered 
speech is extremely useful for speech language pathologists. 

In conclusion, I highly recommend this book to be included in a 
course of speech language pathology and for the students in 
linguistics. Even for teachers, it seems to me as a 'must have' kind of 
book. 

REFERENCES

Crystal, D. (1981) Clinical Linguistics. Springer-Verlag /Wien.

Grunwell, P. (1977) The nature of phonological disability in children. 
London: Academic Press 

Ladefoged, P. (2001) A Course in Phonetics. Thompson Learning.

Laver, J. (1994) Principles of Phonetics. Cambridge University Press. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

The reviewer is a visiting faculty member in the department of speech 
and language pathology, AYJ National Institute for hearing 
handicapped, Mumbai, India. She is also visiting faculty in linguistics in 
SNDT University, Mumbai. Her research interest is in phonetics and 
corpus linguistics. Currently she is working on acoustic cues for the 
perception of sounds in children.





-----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-16-3480