A major difficulty facing almost any foreign language learner is the achievement of acceptable pronunciation which marks his success in mastering the language. Many EFL learners master such aspects of language as syntax, semantics, morphology, and even pragmatics to the point of native-like competence, but fail to master phonology. This is partly because of the physiological constraints that make the pronunciation of a foreign or second language sound different from that of the native language of the speakers, and partly due to the lack of appropriate training in phonology courses.

An Introduction to phonetics is designed to support EFL learners in achieving native-like pronunciation:

?Chapter one deals with the history of phonology and phonetics and provides a brief overview of the impact of philosophy and psychology on the emergence of phonology.

?Chapter two defines the notion of phoneme, describes IPA phonetic alphabet, and distinguishes between broad and narrow transcriptions.

?Chapters three and four provide an in-depth account of traditional and systematic articulatory phonetics respectively.

?Chapter five discusses the place of suprasegmentals in phonology.

?Chapter six seeks to explain phonemics.

?Chapter seven provides a brief introduction to the rudiments of acoustic or physical phonetics.

?Chapter eight introduces the reader to the notion of auditory phonetics.

• The tables, figures, and photos that are presented throughout the book are designed to give the reader an instant reference for the precise articulation of English phonemes.

The book is designed for use in undergraduate classes of phonology and phonetics. The fifth chapter is also useful for students of conversation classes. Teachers at high school level may also find the fifth chapter valuable. The step by step approach of the book towards its subject matter makes it is easy for the reader to follow the line of discussion without the help of a phonology teacher.

Parviz Birjandi

Mohammad Ali Salmani-Nodoushan

August 2005