This volume provides a comprehensive and authoritative survey of the key topics of the phonetic sciences. Contributions by many of the leading researchers in the field cover both theoretical and applied areas of speech communication. There are chapters on the biological foundations of speech and hearing, such as brain functions underlying speech, auditory neural processing, and articulatory processes in speech production. There are contributions on experimental phonetics, including aerodynamics of speech, speech signal processing, laboratory techniques and acoustic phonetics, as well as discussions of speech technology applications in areas such as automatic recognition of speech and speakers, and speech synthesis. A section on theoretical approaches in phonetic sciences addresses aspects of spoken word recognition, coarticulation, articulatory/acoustic/auditory relationships and laryngeal function. The final section on linguistic phonetics covers descriptive criteria in general phonetics and the relationship between phonetics and other areas of linguistics such as phonology. The volume represents an unparalleled resource to students and specialists in linguistics, phonetics and psychology, speech and language therapists and speech technologists.