This comprehensive introductory textbook is designed primarily for students of linguistics who are encountering phonetics for the first time. The book guides the reader through the main sub-areas of phonetic science which constitute the speech chain, charting the progress of speech fromspeaker to listener.About the Author: Martin J. Ball is Professor in the Department of Communicative Disorders at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA.Joan Rahilly is Senior Lecturer in Languages and Linguistics at Queen's University of Belfast, UK.