Peter Ladefoged
Peter Ladefoged [ˈlędɪfəʊgɪd] (1925-) is a British-American phonetician. He has been active at the universities of Edinburgh, Scotland and Ibadan, Nigeria 1953-61. He is currently Professor of Phonetics Emeritus at at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he taught from 1962–1991. His book A Course in Phonetics is a common introductory text in phonetics, and The Sounds of the World's Languages is widely regarded as a standard phonetics reference. Ladefoged has also written several books on the phonetics of African languages.
Ladefoged earned his Ph.D. from the University of Ediburgh in 1959. Ladefoged has been involved with the phonetics laboratory at UCLA since he set it up in the 1960s. He also has been interested in listening to and describing every sound used in spoken human language, which he estimates at 900 consonants and 200 vowels. This research formed the basis of much of The Sounds of the World's Languages. Ladefoged has also long been a member of the International Phonetic Association, and has been involved in maintaining its International Phonetic Alphabet. He is also editor of the Journal of the International Phonetic Association.
Bibliography
- A Course in Phonetics (1975) ISBN 0155073192
- Elements of Acoustic Phonetics (1995) ISBN 0226467643
- The Sounds of the World's Languages (Phonological Theory) (with Ian Maddieson) (1996) ISBN 0631198156
- Vowels and Consonants: An Introduction to the Sounds of Languages (2000) ISBN 0631214127
- Phonetic Data Analysis: An Introduction to Fieldwork and Instrumental Phonetics (2003) ISBN 0631232702
External links
- homepage Peter Ladefoged's home page at UCLA