The aim of phonetic transcription is to represent the sounds of speech on paper. This book surveys the history of attempts to represent speech, considering the relationship of transcription to written language and includes a thorough analysis of the many different kinds of phonetic transcription addressing what exactly is represented in different kinds and levels of transcription. It reviews contemporary uses of phonetic transcription in a range of situations including dictionaries, language teaching texts, phonetic and phonological studies, dialectology and sociolinguistics, speech pathology and therapy, and forensic phonetics. The author grounds his work in the philosophy of phenomenalism, countering arguments against auditory transcription that have been advanced by experimental phoneticians for reasons of empirical inadequacy, and by linguistic rationalists who say it is irrelevant for understanding the supposedly innate categories that are said to underlie speech.

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