Handbook of Vowels and Vowel Disorders

In the general study of speech and phonetics, vowels have stood in second place to consonants. But what vowels are, how they differ from one another, how they vary among speakers, and how they are subject to disorder, are questions that require a closer examination.

This Handbook presents a comprehensive, cogent, and up-to-date analysis of the vowel, including its typical development in children's speech, description by perceptual and instrumental methods, cross-linguistic and sociolinguistic aspects, and disorders of its production and use. It approaches the problems of vowel production and perception from the viewpoints of physiology, physics, psychology, linguistics, phonetics, phonology, and speech-language pathology. The chapters are logically complementary, and the major sections of the book are like key dimensions of understanding, each adding a perspective and base of knowledge on vowels. The sum total of the chapters is a synthesis of information on vowels that has no precedent.

Martin J. Ball is Hawthorne-BoRSF Endowed Professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He is co-editor of the journal Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics (Taylor & Francis), and the book series Communication Disorders Across Languages (Multilingual Matters). His main research interests include sociolinguistics, clinical phonetics and phonology, and the linguistics of Welsh. He is an honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Fiona Gibbon is a Professor in the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences at University College Cork, Ireland. Her research focuses on new developments in instrumentation to improve diagnosis and treatments for children with speech disorders, especially those with motor disorders, phonological impairment, cleft palate and autism. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.