英语语音学纲要/AN OUTLINE OF ENGLISH PHONETICS

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DANIEL JONES, M. A.
丹尼尔·琼斯,文学硕士
译制方：©上海笙篙文化发展有限公司

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PREFACE

OBJECT OF THE BOOK

It is now generally recognized that no adult foreigner is likely to acquire a really good pronunciation of the English language unless he makes a scientific study of the English speech-sounds and their distribution in connected speech. The present book has been prepared with a view to giving the foreigner all the information of this nature that he is likely to require for learning “educated Southern English” as described in § 24.

The greater part of the book is devoted to a discussion of the mistakes which are commonly made by foreigners in the pronunciation of English, and methods are indicated for correcting these errors. These methods are all based on personal experience; many of them are of my own devising, and none have been included without personal knowledge of their utility in practical teaching.¹

前言

本书的目的

如今人们普遍认识到，任何成年外国人，若不对英语的语音以及这些语音在连贯语流中的分布进行科学研究，几乎不可能真正掌握良好的英语发音。本书的编写，旨在向外国学习者提供他们在学习第 24 节所述的英格兰南部受教育者所使用的英语时，可能需要的这一类全部相关知识。

本书的大部分篇幅用于讨论外国人在英语发音中常见的错误，并指出纠正这些错误的方法。这些方法全部建立在个人经验之上；其中许多为作者本人所创设，且凡被收入书中的方法，作者均基于其在实际教学中确知其具有实用价值。¹

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HOW TO USE THE BOOK

It is not, of course, suggested that this or any other book can form a substitute for oral training. The idea that correct pronunciation can be learned by theory alone is even more absurd than the idea that it can be learned by imitation alone. Rare instances may be found of persons possessing extraordinary powers of imitation, who are able to learn the correct pronunciation of any foreign language simply by imitation. But it is certain that no foreigner could ever hope to pronounce such sounds as the vowels in the English words up or bird from written descriptions only. Imitation is necessarily a most important part of training in the pronunciation of a foreign language, and it may be remarked in passing, that in this connexion the advantage of a naturally good ear cannot be overestimated. The importance of phonetics lies in the fact that it helps the student to imitate better than he could without the aid of phonetics. In the words of H. E. Palmer,² “without a phonetic training the bad pronouncer will never become a good pronouncer, and with a phonetic training he probably will”; to which we might add that with phonetic training the naturally good pronouncer will probably become a perfect pronouncer.

如何使用本书
当然，本书并不认为自己或任何其他书籍可以取代口头训练。认为仅凭理论就能够学会正确发音的想法，甚至比认为仅凭模仿就能学会发音的想法更加荒谬。确实可以找到极少数具有非凡模仿能力的人，他们仅通过模仿便能够学会任何外语的正确发音；然而可以肯定的是，任何外国学习者都不可能仅凭书面描述，就指望学会英语单词 up 或 bird 中元音这样的发音。
在外语发音训练中，模仿必然占据极其重要的地位；顺带一提，在这一方面，天生良好的听觉所具有的优势无论如何高估都不过分。语音学的重要性正在于：它能够帮助学习者比在没有语音学辅助的情况下，更有效地进行模仿。正如 H. E. Palmer（哈罗德·爱德华·帕尔默）所说：²“没有语音训练，发音不好的人永远不可能成为发音良好的人；而接受了语音训练，他很可能会做到这一点。”我们还可以补充一句：经过语音训练，天生发音良好的人，很可能会成为发音完美的人。

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It is hoped then that by combining the study of this book with careful observation and imitation of the pronunciation of English speakers, foreigners may find the task of learning the pronunciation of the English language appreciably lightened.

Practice of sounds by the methods indicated in this book should of course be supplemented by ear-training exercises (such as those given in Appendix C) and by continual reading of phonetic texts (such as those in my Phonetic Readings in English or the other books mentioned in Appendix E (i) and (ii)).

因此，可以期望，通过将本书的学习与对英语母语者发音的细致观察和模仿相结合，外国学习者会发现，学习英语发音这一任务能够得到显著的减轻。

按照本书所指出的方法进行语音练习，当然还应辅以听觉训练练习（如附录 C 中所给出的练习），并通过持续阅读语音文本来加以巩固（例如作者的《英语语音阅读材料》，或附录 E（i）与（ii）中所提及的其他书籍）。

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EXPERIMENTAL METHODS

For the benefit of those who are accustomed to instrumental methods or who wish to study these methods, a certain amount of information regarding experimental phonetics has been included. The part of the book dealing with this branch of the subject may be entirely omitted by students who do not desire to take up experimental work, or have no opportunity of doing so. All paragraphs which may be so omitted are marked with an asterisk *. Experimental phonetics is a highly interesting study in itself, but it must not be regarded as an indispensable study for those who wish to learn to pronounce a foreign language correctly. Some experiments may be of use in this connexion in the case of the students who have by nature a special difficulty in hearing the differences between similar sounds. In most cases, however, the experiments should be regarded merely as corroborative of the results obtainable by the ordinary methods of practical phonetics—that is, by direct observations made by a trained ear—and as a means of helping to fix them in the student’s memory. Experiments which go further than this can hardly be considered as of practical value to language students.

实验方法

为方便那些习惯于使用仪器方法，或希望研究这些方法的读者，书中收录了一定数量有关实验语音学的资料。对于不打算从事实验研究，或没有条件进行此类研究的学习者而言，书中涉及这一分支的部分可以完全略去。凡可如此略去的段落，均以星号 * 标出。

实验语音学本身是一门极具趣味性的研究领域，但对于希望正确掌握外语发音的学习者来说，它并不应被视为一门不可或缺的学习内容。在这一方面，对于那些天生在辨别相似语音差异上存在特殊困难的学习者而言，某些实验或许会有所帮助。然而，在大多数情况下，这些实验只能被视为一种辅助性的手段：它们的主要作用，是对通过实践语音学的一般方法所能获得的结果加以印证——这些方法指的是依靠受过训练的听辨能力，对语音进行直接感知和判断——同时也有助于学习者将这些结果更牢固地记住。超出这一范围的实验，几乎难以被认为对语言学习者具有实际价值。