An Introduction to English Phonology

Abstract

This textbook is designed for use on ten- or twelve-week introductory courses on English phonology of the sort taught in the first year of many English Language and Linguistics degrees. It has been a pleasure to find the first edition being used for such purposes around the world, but with student interests diversifying and first-year courses often becoming more general in coverage, it has been important to adjust this second edition accordingly. In particular, I have expanded the coverage of different accents so the book should also be usable on introductory courses which focus more on variation in English, albeit still with a significant emphasis on sounds. Based on what colleagues have reported about the first edition, the book seems to work well at a rate of a chapter a week. However, students may benefit from a little more time spent on Chapter 2, where some of the key theoretical concepts are introduced; and the chapters which have been expanded most for this second edition are Chapters 8 and 10, either or both of which could be divided across two weeks on a slightly longer course.