36.2152, Reviews: The Sounds of Language: Elizabeth C. Zsiga (2024)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-2152. Mon Jul 14 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.2152, Reviews: The Sounds of Language: Elizabeth C. Zsiga (2024)

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Date: 12-Jul-2025
From: Andrea de los Angeles Canavosio [andrea.canavosio at unc.edu.ar]
Subject: Phonetics: Elizabeth C. Zsiga (2024)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/35-954

Title: The Sounds of Language
Subtitle: An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology, 2nd Edition
Series Title: Linguistics in the World
Publication Year: 2024

Publisher: Wiley
           http://www.wiley.com
Book URL:
https://www.wiley.com/en-us/The+Sounds+of+Language%3A+An+Introduction+to+Phonetics+and+Phonology%2C+2nd+Edition-p-9781119878483

Author(s): Elizabeth C. Zsiga

Reviewer: Andrea de los Angeles Canavosio

REVIEW
This book about the linguistic study of sounds is an excellent
resource to introduce students of linguistics and new linguists into
the field of phonetics and phonology. Not only does it include
theoretical explanations which are beautifully contextualised, but it
also includes practice activities in the book and on a website.
It consists of 24 chapters grouped into six different parts. At the
end of each chapter, further readings to expand on the topics
presented are suggested. Furthermore, several review exercises and
further analysis and discussion tasks are proposed so as to returnto
the main concepts developed and encourage the reader to keep
reflecting upon them. Readers are also encouraged to go online to the
book’s companion website to access additional resources relating to
each chapter.
Part 1 contains five chapters and is devoted to articulatory
phonetics. It includes a historical review of the origin and
development of human language and the study of speech, phonetics and
phonology. It also provides a detailed description of the parts of the
vocal tract and the development of the tools and technological devices
that have been used throughout the decades to study speech. It
includes an explanation of the way articulators interact to produce
sounds of languages from all around the world, which allows readers to
explore and try to articulate sounds that they may have never
produced. Phonetic transcription is introduced, together with
consonant and vowel sounds that human beings are capable of producing,
zooming into positional variation in English.
Part 2 contains four chapters and deals with acoustics and perception.
Details are given in relation to how the sounds of language are
produced, transmitted, perceived and measured. Concepts such as
soundwaves, sound propagation, intensity, resonance and frequency are
explained. The descriptions and expositions employ  examples and
comparisons with real life situations that help us to understand the
physics of sounds and the different kinds of waves. For those who are
interested, formulas to measure intensity and other features of
soundwaves are provided. A thorough account of the process of how
sounds come to be digitised and transformed into binary notation is
also included.
Whereas the first two parts concentrate on the physical aspects of the
production and perception of sounds, Part 3 moves beyond their
physical characteristics to delve into the more abstract and
systematic relationships there are among sounds.  It is divided into 5
chapters revolving around segmental phonology, concentrating on how
sounds combine in linear strings. Key concepts such as contrast and
predictability are explained and analysed through concrete examples.
Phonotactic constraints and alternations in different languages are
described in order to understand how each language has its own
restrictions, phonological patterns and phonological and morphological
interactions. Phonology is later on analysed under the light of
rule-based Generative Grammar; autosegmental representations,
Constraint-based phonology and the Optimality Theory are touched upon
as well.
Part 4, which contains three chapters, keeps focusing on phonology but
moves on to suprasegmentals, i.e., higher-level organisational units.
The sonority, structure, constraints and alternations that may occur
in syllables because of environment, for instance, are delineated. The
author goes on to explain linguistic stress, its different levels in
English, and how stress determines certain allophonic patterns.
Reference is made to the contrasts between languages that use lexical,
paradigmatic or positional stress. The alternating nature of stress is
outlined by introducing the notion of metrical foot. A more detailed
description of stress in English is included, making reference to
patterns for different word categories but also highlighting its
complexity and unpredictability. The way in which pitch is used to
convey a variety of meanings in both tonal and non-tonal languages is
discussed in the last chapter of this part, together with its
autosegmental representation.
Part 5 has two chapters and it is devoted to how phonology, i.e. sound
structure, and morphology, i.e. word structure, interact in order to
construct words which are pronounceable and interpretable. Through
examples and minute descriptions we come to acknowledge how
phonological restrictions and morphological distinctions work
together. Discussions on how phonology conditions allomorphy are
presented, followed by types of prosodic and process morphology. The
last chapter in this part deals with lexical phonology, and a
distinction is made depending on whether phonological alternations
interact with morphology (lexical) or with phonetics (post-lexical).
Classifications and examples are thoroughly explained. Theoretical
approaches to lexical phonology are presented highlighting the
perspective each of them proposes.
Lastly, Part 6 contains six chapters which deal with sound variation
and change caused by different factors and also with acquisition and
learning.  First, diachronic variation is under focus. Changes that
took place in the last millennium are described and exemplified using
different versions of the Bible. The types of sound change and the
possible causes and effects of these variations are discussed. A
rather captivating section shows how researchers trace sounds across
languages so as to historically reconstruct the origin of certain
sounds. Correspondences between Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Germanic
identified by linguists, such as the Brothers Grimm and later on
developed into the Neogrammarian hypothesis, are presented in order to
show how various languages and families of languages relate to one
another. Limitations to the genetic model of language change are also
acknowledged. Finally, the origins of Old English and later Middle
English are described, exhibiting how different waves of
settlers/invaders and their native languages circulated in what is now
British territory. The changes that took place during the Modern
English period, such as The Great Vowel Shift are illustrated. When
analysing Contemporary English, examples of loans and borrowimgs from
languages such as French and Latin are given.
EVALUATION
This is a highly enjoyable and recommendable book, not just for
linguistics students or new graduates but also for experienced
researchers and teachers. It allows readers to review phonological
phenomena while being provided with historical and socio-cultural
facts that were part of their origin and development.
All topics and subtopics are thoroughly contextualised, providing a
historical perspective on the development of the concepts,
instruments, techniques or technological devices described. This
historical, social and even geopolitical contextualisation allows
readers to critically interpret those elements and also reflect upon
other possibilities and options that were left aside. For instance,
the author raises awareness about the Eurocentric perspective of the
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which makes us imagine other
configurations of the alphabet, had other actors been in charge of
developing it and had different communities, interests and
perspectives been taken into account.
Something I found both innovative and convenient is that there appear
detailed descriptions of the various aspects of the articulation of
all the sounds which human beings are capable of making. Readers have
access to practical instructions and tips on how to produce different
articulatory configurations of sounds from numerous languages; this
allows readers to experiment and even play with their phonation
system. Creative and helpful comparisons, images and speech technology
are used to aid explanations about most of the issues touched upon.
Through the text it is interesting to see how the author also refers
to social factors and changes that contribute to a more thorough
understanding of phenomena analysed. All over the book we find “In
Focus” sections which include curious and engaging facts related to
the topic being discussed. This information is not necessarily
strictly related to phonology or even linguistics at times, but
contributes to providing enough data to fully understand the processes
by which certain phenomena function or have particular characteristics
nowadays.  For example, when making reference to diachronic changes
and differences between old English and Contemporary English, the
author refers to how gender was portrayed, and the use of
“gender-neutral” masculine constructions; this puts into perspective
the great number of changes that have taken place throughout history,
not just at the phonetic level, and reveals social processes that also
materialised in between.
This book is highly recommendable for both graduate and undergraduate
linguistics students and scholars interested in having a historical,
contextualised and comprehensive view of human sounds around the
globe. It is hard to find such detailed and thorough descriptions and
explanations about so many phonetics and phonology topics which are
crucial to understanding the importance and the complexity of this
field of linguistics.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
My name is Andrea Canavosio. I work as an English Language and
Phonetics and Phonology lecturer and researcher at the National
University of Córdoba, Argentina. I have a PhD in Linguistics at the
University of Northumbria, Newcastle, UK,  and an MA in English
Applied Linguistics from the University of Córdoba. My research
interests revolve around Spanish and English phonetics and phonology,
sociophonetics, assessment of oral proficiency, and second language
acquisition. I have also done research on second language writing and
assessment.



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