В справочнике дается общий перечень наиболее распространенных знаков, условных обозначений, а также наиболее употребительных терминологических сокращений, принятых в английской и американской тех. литературе.

Phonetics of English and Dutch is aimed at Dutch-speaking students, from both the Netherlands and Belgium, taking phonetics as part of courses in English at university and teacher-training institutes. In addition, it is hoped that the book will prove useful to English speakers who wish to gain an insight into the present-day pronunciation of Dutch. The course provides a complete introduction to the phonetics of English and Dutch based on an essentially practical approach to the subject. No previous knowledge of phonetics is assumed of the reader, and all technical terms are explained in straightforward language as they are introduced. There is an emphasis throughout on the application of phonetics in second language acquisition; students are shown how a knowledge of phonetics can help them improve their own pronunciation and how this know-how can be passed on to pupils. Theoretical and practical aspects of the subject are clarified for the reader by means of numerous self-study exercises in articulation and transcription.

Why write a book on phonetic transcription? After more than half a century of major advances in instrumental phonetics which have rightly taken credit for broadening and deepening our knowledge of the structure of speech, it can appear to many that symbols and transcription have had their day. What, it might be asked, can [d] ever tell us that spectrograms, palatograms and the like cannot? If traditional transcription is not to fade away or be made the amanuensis of automated forms of analysis, then a case must be made for it on the grounds that it can express something which instruments cannot. Arguments need to be put against the view that there is nothing to be gained in phonetics by listening analytically to people speaking and transcribing what we hear. Marshalling the arguments provides the opportunity not only to examine critically the aims and methods of transcription but also to think about how phonetic symbols work in relation to phonetic theory on the one hand and phonetic data on the other; to consider, that is, the manner of their semiosis. This book attempts to address these issues and to place them in the context of the historical emergence of transcriptional resources from resources for writing language, the development of phonetic theory, and their coming together to make what I refer to as proper phonetic transcription possible.