This book is a comprehensive compendium of articulatory phonetics including a very well organized description of the functional anatomy of the speech production apparatus, wonderful images that improve the understanding of complex processes and techniques, exercises, a summary of the terminology that is used in each research area, and a link to online assignments. The authors have done everything possible to make the book attractive to students and researchers. The figures in the book are carefully designed and attractive, and anatomical details are easy to read. Moreover, the book is full of examples from everyday life, clinical populations, and mnemonics for remembering technical terms. It is a book which makes a reader who is interested in kinetics and speech production curious about the discipline. I highly recommend the book to students in linguistics or speech pathology, to researchers and teachers at different levels. To me the cost–benefit ratio of the book is excellent (relatively low cost and high benefit). The book is available as a hardcover, paperback and e-book edition.
It consists of two parts: the first one, ‘Getting to sound’, includes five chapters on several aspects of the central and peripheral nervous system, respiration and the larynx. The second part, ‘Articulating sounds’, comprises six chapters that focus on functional anatomy and the articulation of specific sounds or sound classes moving from the lower part of the vocal tract, the larynx, towards the lips. In the following, I briefly summarize each chapter.
Chapter 1 introduces speech production as a feed-forward model, where thought is the origin of a process that leads to speech movements and acoustic output. Since speech communication is not purely feed-forward, the authors briefly acknowledge the role of feedback in this process. However, they take the speech chain as a way to guide the reader through the different chapters that are ordered in a top–down manner from the brain to the coordinated action of articulators. The chapter starts with an explanation of some basic terms concerning anatomical planes, muscle names, and tools to measure different signals within this speech chain.
Chapter 2 is dedicated to the Central Nervous System. It begins with the functional anatomy of single neurons, continues then with chemical processes to transfer information within a neuron and between successive neurons, and finally describes the main involvement and location of cortical areas involved in speech production and perception. The chapter ends with a brief explanation of techniques measuring brain activation.
Chapter 3 consists of two parts: the first is a complement to Chapter 2 and focuses on the Peripheral Nervous System with the cranial and spinal nerves. It also involves some reader-friendly mnemonics to remember the cranial nerves and their function in speech production. The second part of the chapter moves on to muscles, muscle activation, and how to measure muscular activation indirectly via Electromyography.
In Chapter 4 the authors focus on respiration. This comprehensive chapter summarizes the bony structures, inspiratory and expiratory muscles, their activities within the respiratory cycle as well as techniques for measuring air pressure and flow. Many reader-friendly examples are provided such as: bellows as a metaphor to describe different phases of respiration, short ‘to do’ instructions to discover certain respiratory properties by oneself, and the use of the diaphragm for singing or public speaking. The only subject missing in this chapter is Inductance Plethysmography, the technique which is frequently used to measure lung volume and respiratory kinematics. Instead the authors mention the less comfortable and less frequently used full body plethysmograph.
The last chapter of Part I is on the larynx (Chapter 5) including the anatomical description of cartilages and intrinsic laryngeal muscles, the activity of the muscles during the production of voicing and voicelessness, as well as aerodynamic mechanisms and theoretical concepts of modal phonation. The authors introduce EGG as an easily applicable method to measure phonation. Another technique, photoelectroglottography, is mentioned later in Chapter 6. For those who like to see and touch an object of investigation themselves, the authors have developed a paper larynx. Readers can play with the paper larynx and answer questions relating to muscle insertion and origin.
Chapter 6 is a follow-up of the preceding one but now with an emphasis on extrinsic laryngeal muscles, non-model phonation types (breathy, creaky voice and falsetto) and glottalic airstream mechanisms (ingressive and egressive). I was very pleased to see such a structured functional anatomy description of the extrinsic laryngeal muscles, because this part is generally very complex and the interdependencies between the larynx and the upper vocal tract controversial. Furthermore the explanations of how egressive and ingressive sounds are realized and which parts of the vocal tract are coordinated for which aerodynamic purpose are demonstrated clearly.
The following Chapter 7 looks at the velum and its connections and discusses sounds that are produced with distinct oral–nasal coordination and uvular constrictions. It is one of the slightly shorter chapters in the book which usually cover about 20 pages. Surprisingly, the chapter begins with an anatomical description of the whole skull incorporating parts which have no obvious connection to the velum, but I assume that the authors intended to provide a comprehensive overview. For students or scientists who are interested in speaker-specific mechanisms, this chapter also explains four different mechanisms for closing the velo-pharyngeal port. Among the related side issues (presented in grey boxes in every chapter) are cleft palate speech and swallowing. The chapter closes with a technique that was used in the past to measure velar movements (x-ray) but also briefly mentions indirect techniques, for instance nasal airflow.
The subsequent two chapters deal with the tongue and the jaw. Chapter 8 is dedicated to vowels and Chapter 9 concentrates on quicker movements for lingual consonants. The former starts with an introduction to skull anatomy, muscles of the jaw and the extrinsic tongue muscles, while the latter mentions the intrinsic tongue muscles and what movements they cause. The chapter on vowels explains different phonological features (i.e. high front, high back, low vowels; advanced and retracted tongue root) and potential muscles involved in their production. In the consonant chapter, the authors discuss constrictions in the vocal tract and how they are realized. At the end of Chapter 8, ultrasound, a technique the authors are famous for, is explained. Chapter 9 describes electropalatography and linguography, techniques to study the motion of the tongue in contact with the palate. For those who have only seen the tongue from outside and think that it is defined entirely by the relatively small structure visible from outside, it may be worth buying children's modelling clay to construct the colourful clay tongue (every muscle has a different colour) the authors propose.
Chapter 10 is about the articulation of labial sounds. Within the 14 pages, it introduces the reader to (audio) visual feedback, the orbicularis oris and other lip and face muscles, and the movements they can compose in various sound classes. The chapter finishes with various techniques (normal and high speed video imaging, Optotrak and Vicon MX, x-ray microbeam as well as Electromagnetic Articulography), touching on the following Chapter 11 how articulations are combined. Chapter 11 presents different theoretical approaches to how articulators are coordinated (look ahead, context invariant and unifying models). Articulatory coordination of complex sounds such as clicks, liquids and rhotics are provided, and the book ends with a section on coarticulation and different imaging techniques (computer tomography, (real time) Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
Every chapter finishes with a short description of techniques analysing the respective neural activations or articulatory movements. A list of keywords (called ‘sufficient jargon’) is additionally provided together with a paragraph including short-answer questions which help students to select the main points in the text and may reduce the preparation time for the teacher. Most chapters are additionally linked to a practical online assignment at www.wiley.com/go/articlatoryphonetics. I tried to do the assignment, but had to register first and indicate which course I attend or teach. Since none of these two options applied to me, I was unable to do the practical assignments via the publisher webpage, but contacted the authors. The practical assignments are worth doing, because they require the reader to utilize what they have read in a practical application with real data. It would be helpful if the publisher could change its policies.
At the end of the book there is a table summarizing all muscles, their innervation, insertion and origin, and an index of terms used.
There are a few formal flaws in the book: Subsections are separated in 1.1.1, but there is no 1.1.2 (the same for 1.2.1; 2.1.1; 2.2.1; 3.3.1). There are also places where I would have included more references, in particular where the authors introduce the function and mechanisms of the respective muscles. It may be conventional not to include this information, but I would have found it useful. However, these minor issues do not detract from a generally excellent book.
